


The Drummer Boy of Shinganshina

by Bejerwin



Series: A Tale of Two Towns [1]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, DrummerBoy!Eren, F/M, If I stick with this it will have more plot and maaaaybe have a raised rating, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Jean the drum lover, M/M, Okay I meant to make a one-shot, Other, Slow Build, Smoking, Underage Smoking, and it was supposed to be jeaneren but my mind made it more complex than that, more characters?, so probably going to be a slow build to 'something'
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-12
Updated: 2016-07-12
Packaged: 2018-02-25 01:43:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 33,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2603963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bejerwin/pseuds/Bejerwin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Drumbeats and angry teens.<br/>That's basically it.</p><p>
  <i>I have no dire need to feel such animosity, but <b>fuck</b> that Jaeger guy. Fuck him and his talented hands.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Friend of a Friend of a Friend

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Eli the ineveraskedtobeatitan mun who helps me cope with Eren ships](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Eli+the+ineveraskedtobeatitan+mun+who+helps+me+cope+with+Eren+ships), [Lilly for making me feel better about my first snk fic that got anon hate](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Lilly+for+making+me+feel+better+about+my+first+snk+fic+that+got+anon+hate).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jean isn't sure why but he already hates the friend of his friend's friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was inspired to write more Jeaneren when I saw the town's drum group practicing last night. I also was inspired to better my Jeaneren after some anon hate on my last writing. 
> 
> So this it the evolved version of my original one-shot I planned out in my head yesterday. I started writing it while doing homework so I just finished the first chapter at like 1 in the morning. 
> 
> I hope you like it? >w>;
> 
> Edit Jan/12/15: I made some corrections but if anyone finds some tell me!

Maybe it was the wind that carried the heavy beats of multiple drums across the small town. Maybe it was that Jean was entirely in love with music, especially the rhythmic beating of drums that keep all the other instruments in line that he heard them. Maybe he just really wanted to go somewhere else, away from his friends for a bit.

Maybe he shouldn’t have gone looking for the source at all.

Jean Kirschstein was a junior in high school in the town of Trost, a larger, more extravagant version of Shinganshina. Shinganshina had more history though, with people who knew each other better than those of Trost. It was barely smaller but had more of a warm atmosphere filling the streets. It was just across the cemetery and train tracks both towns shared.

It was a common place for Jean and his friends to go since it meant that no one should know them there, and it had a lot of locales that they deemed worthy for their hangouts.

They had sat outside the lone, brick building that used to be a part of a castle of some sort, they crowded in one of the corners of the open space that many local kids would go to also hang out. But it was about nine at night and there was classes for all the Maria district schools, this included Shinganshina. Rose district schools, including Trost, had a non-student day which they were all glad for.

“Hey Jean,” the bald kid named Connie called. He came to Trost to get a better education and quickly befriended Sasha, another student who went to Trost for the same reason. Both could easily relate to the fact they both came from miniscule towns out in the middle of no where.

“What Connie?” Jean inquired, lazily slouching against the building next to his best friend who had thrown himself into the depths of a new book the new blond kid had suggested him.

“Ya look like someone pissed in your haybale, what’s wrong?” He snickered and elbowed Sasha for some praise. She elbowed back and giggled behind her thin hand.

“I swear to fuck I will punch your shiny, bald head off your shoulders if you keep making horse jokes.”

Marco brought the book away from his face a bit and just said plainly, “Guys, c’mon. Not here.” He immediately went back to reading.

Jean sighed and gave a friendly kick of annoyance to Connie’s knee while crossing his arms. He shut his eyes just as a group of people passed by with interestingly shaped bags but he dismissed it. He caught himself listening to Sasha and Connie about something or other about Ymir finally getting Historia to date her.

“I just realized, where did that new kid Armin go?” Sasha asked loudly.

Jean reluctantly opened his eyes and noticed there were just four of them, they had all packed into Marco’s five seater car with all seats filled. He grunted as he sat up more straight and looked over at Marco. He shrugged and put his bookmark into his book, halfway through it, it seemed, and put it away into a small backpack.

“No one knows where Armin went? He hardly ever goes out, we would look like jerks if we didn’t go looking for him. What if he got lost somewhere? Well no, that wouldn’t make sense...” Marco murmured, looking around the square.

“He was with us when we got here, where could he have gone?” Sasha asked immediately after.

“This sucks, he seems like the kinda guy who hardly has friends and will feel so alone at a school like ours,” Connie chimed in.

“Okay okay, we’ll go look for him,” Jean grumbled. He hardly knew the guy, not even his friend really, more of Marco’s, but he was a nice guy most of the time.

Though, all he wanted to do was sit around outside, away from home. His mom has been in a nagging mood lately as well. He didn’t really feel it in him to go boy hunting.

Just as Jean was getting up, he heard the familiar sound of beating drums. Not very clear or clean, seems like whoever was playing was warming up.

“Should we go split up and meet back up here or,” Marco started saying before Jean started walking toward the sound. “Jean?”

“You guys go start looking, I’m just going to go check out that sound real quick. I’ll be right there.”

Jean could hear Marco calling after him but stop after he rounded the corner that lead to the back street and balcony behind the partial castle building. The male han’t realized how close the drums actually were. They came from down the stairs, just at the base. He walked over to the railings that edged the balcony that looked down upon the back street. It seemed to be one of the many outer streets that had been abandoned by their owners for better living.

He rested his arms on the cold railing, feeling the full blast of the autumn wind now that there was nothing obstructing the wind’s path. His sweater barely forbade the cold air from entering his body through his skin, but he could care less as he watched the group of drummers circling up, quickly shaking out their arms. They seemed to be chatting amongst themselves, mostly laughing, most if not all of them bundled up in some way.

“Practicing this late at night?” he murmured to himself as he was about to walk away without really looking at each person carefully.

“Alright!” someone called below to gather the attention of the massive group. Not much was said and Jean wasn’t really listening, as he was about to walk back over to his friends who had been waiting for him to hurry up. But he turned back around once he heard the clean, crisp sounds of multiple drums. He could hear the different kinds and sections each played, and though drums obviously have no notes, they had specific sounds that really made Jean shiver. Drums were great, Jean loved how good they could sound without any notes to play, just a beat to keep or a rhythm to create with a variation of tapping and pauses.

He repositioned his arms on the railing, watching the circle of humans simultaneously lifting their arms and dropping their hands or swirling a single drumstick around together.

“Hey, isn’t that Armin?” Connie shouted above the wind that had picked up while pointing down at the group. _Where did he come from?_

Jean followed the male’s extended arm and found that he was right. The blond was standing down there, the only one without a drum or sticks among the group that had gone through their first repetition of their rhythm. But what really caught his attention was the male next to their new friend who wore a tight, thin jacket and an old pair of jeans that hugged his butt but nothing else. He had a dark, possibly maroon colored beanie hugging his scalp. His bangs were flailing wildly off his forehead and every so often Jean would notice his very defined eyebrows that complimented his eye shape.

“Should we go down there?” Sasha pondered aloud, leaning over the railing over the staircase.

Jean licked his lips and shook his head before he responded. “No, let’s wait a bit.” He continued to eye Armin’s drummer friend. He looked familiar, sort of.

And so they waited. All four of them listening to the loud, crisp sounds of the drums. It had been thirty minutes, almost time for them to head back into their own town when the group of drummers finally stopped.

“I wonder what their practicing for, maybe for that one festival that they hold during the summer every year?” Marco voiced.

“But that is in the summer, why would they practice now? It’s already passed, maybe it is for school.” Sasha argued.

“Would the school really let them practice in some deserted back street at nine pm? Really?” Connie countered.

Their short banter was loud enough to catch the attention of multiple drummers who looked up at the group of four. This included Armin who had been so focused on chatting with the male next to him that he hardly noticed how loud he was speaking.

The blond had turned shortly to glance over before he did a full 180. “Oh, hi,” he called sheepishly from below. He gave a short wave and mumbled something to the male before heading off up the stairs to meet up with his new friends of a few weeks at the balcony. The wind had died down a bit, making it easier to chat at a normal volume.

Armin was breathing heavy by the time he got to them and had to catch his breath before he could speak clearly. “Sorry, I saw a friend and ran after him without really telling you I had left.”

“No, it’s alright, we know you used to live here. We were just wondering what happened to you,” Marco cheerfully stated.

“Wait you used to live here?” Connie asked confused. Sasha just elbowed him and Armin decided to take it that he didn’t have to answer that.

“What were they practicing for?”

Armin smiled wide and started to explain before he was cut off.

“Yo, Arm. Are you coming over tonight? I know how your grandpa’s like when you come home late, oh.” The male Jean saw next to Armin had walked up behind the blond with a drum shaped bag crossing his body. He had already packed up it seemed that their practice was over for the night.

“Eren, these are my new friend’s from Trost High, they come over here a lot to hang out. Jean, Marco, Sasha, Connie, this is Eren, we’ve been bestfriends since before we even started school,” Armin seemed a bit too cheery about introductions. Jean thought it was odd the smart, quiet new kid was bestfriends with this thuggish character. He gave the group a venomous glare, looking them all up and down. He had this atmosphere about him that Jean picked up on, he felt like this guy would beat anyone up if they even brushed shoulders the wrong way.

The Eren guy spent more time looking Jean over than all the others and that really ticked him off.

“Nice to meet you,” he finally said through barely parted lips. “So Armin-,” he began to say again before being interrupted.

“Hey, do I know you from somewhere?” Connie asked stepping closer to look at Eren better under the yellow light of the street lamps.

“Probably,” he replied simply. “I go to Trost too. Well, only for my electives and AP classes. I am homeschooled for everything else.”

“Oh! I think I have you in Photoshop.”

Marco smiled and also stepped a bit closer. “Don’t you sit by the window in AP Bio? I have you in my first period!”

“Oh, I know you. You sit next to Mikasa,” Eren raised his eyebrows, giving him a friendlier expression.

Jean grit his teeth and started off down the street. For some reason, hearing him talk about Mikasa and hearing him in general really put Jean on edge. Something about him…

“Jean,” he heard his name being called. By which one of them, he didn’t know, but it just added to his irritation.

“I’m going to wait in the car,” he meant to say it calmly but ended up shouting it  over his shoulder. He hadn’t continued walking yet before someone said something else.

“Well, we were all planning on heading to Eren’s place for a bit. None of us have school tomorrow and Eren has the new seasons of all the summer series that premiered this year on discs.”

Jean thought about it, it would look bad to just up and leave. But Jean was torn between his pride and his anger and it was never an easy fight. Why the hell was he mad in the first place? Why the hell did he sound so pissy right then, he was totally calm before.

* * *

 

He found himself falling behind but following the small group none the less toward Eren’s house. The streets were full of the sounds of families quietly speaking along their balconies, cats meowing and their unusually loud footsteps and chatter. Jean had his arms crossed and had a pout similar to a child who had just finished a temper tantrum. Eren was explaining to them why his schooling was weird and stories involving Armin before he moved.

“So why did you move away Armin?” Sasha inquired cheerily.

“Well, my parents went abroad for work and that left my grandpa and I. It just so happened that his home was in Trost and there was better educational opportunities for me there. So I am actually staying with my grandpa until my parents return.”

“Ooh.”

The chatter had reduced to near silence between all of them. They were walking down a steep hill that had a thin road. They walked far down the street until it ended and broke into a two way intersection. The intersection was also thin, probably more for people rather than any vehicles. Bikes could fit, but it was less likely to be seen on that road it seemed.

Eren stopped at the door to a home that seemed to take up most of the street before the wall broke into a new pattern. Eren’s home seemed quite large in comparison to the other buildings. Eren made quick work of opening the door, it was left unlocked apparently, and said, “Here we are. My parents are probably in their room so keep it down, alright?” Eren flipped on a few lights that lit up the short entranceway, the hall and the living room that could be seen through square empty space in the hallway’s wall.

There was a grumbling mixed in with the voices that said various things such as ‘thank you,’ and what not, and the grumbling wasn’t Jean.

Eren lead the group around the corner into the living room to find a man laying on the couch, sleep grumbling. Jean assumed it was Eren’s father, glasses, facial hair, he seemed like the kinda guy who’d drink. But Jean wasn’t the kind to judge.

The brunet left the group to wake his sleeping father by lightly nudging his knee and quietly coaxing him to get off the couch. He grumbled a few things before he rolled off the couch and pat his son on the shoulder, making his way to the stairs, saying his greetings, especially noting Armin, and disappearing all together.

“So that was my dad. And yeah, he’s usually a heavy sleeper but mom’s sick so still keep it quiet.”

“You told us that already,” Jean said annoyed.

Eren flashed an equally annoyed glance at Jean, which gave Jean the opportunity to finally notice how bright his eyes were now that they were in a well lit area. Jean wasn’t even sure what color his eyes were.

“Okay,” Marco said breaking the tense atmosphere the two had created. “So what are we watching then?”

* * *

 

From what Jean had soaked in, Eren’s house was a lot larger than the layout let on. The kitchen was enormous and full of food (to Sasha’s delight), the living room was larger than the kitchen, and there was even more upstairs from what Eren let on when they asked about it.

There was a wall-wrap-around couch, soft and complete with cup holders, and leg rests for those without recliners. The TV was a great size for watching with groups or even alone. It was nice and clean inside, and it made Jean even more irritated.

He sat himself on the edge by the right armrest, the one closest to the exit, Marco sitting next to him. Sasha and Connie made themselves feel right at home by taking the whole other half of the couch that turned because of the wall. Eren had set up the TV, found some snacks and sat himself in between Marco and Armin.

It was mostly silent on their side of the couch as they watched the blood splatter on screen. Sasha and Connie were set on continuous whisper mode, they were not allowed to talk any louder than that.

Jean found it hard to really focus as he noticed Eren was falling asleep, tilting Marco’s way, Armin had already fallen asleep on top of the brunet. Soon the guy that gave Jean unreasonable irritation was about to fall asleep on his best friend with his best friend on him and there would be a pile of people on Jean because he was sure Marco was already asleep.

The male eyed the digital clock on one of the boxes, it read 10:34 and Jean began to wonder if they were leaving at all before the clock struck eleven. He could care less about getting home before midnight, he just didn’t want to spend the night in his casual, outdoor clothes in some, basically a stranger’s house. Sasha and Connie were probably going to have to sleep over somewhere anyway, it was too late to head all the way out of town to bring them home. Armin could get away with sleeping here he assumed, but Marco probably was labeled with some strict curfew this time since he got less than an A on his last Lit test.

Jean felt himself get a headache. He shut his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose and let himself get sucked into the couch. He crossed his arms over his stomach and spread out his legs more on the rests, almost waking Marco up as he did so.

When he opened his eyes he found a maroon blanket, similar to Eren’s beanie, had been carefully placed on him. Marco had curled with another blanket, sort of navy colored, nearby, in the same place Eren and Armin had been what he thought was only moments before. Sasha was at the other side of the couch, somewhat sprawled out with the puke green fleece blanket haphazardly laying on her legs. He had to blink to really focus on the room, the lights were off when he closed his eyes, but now so was the TV. He realized Connie had found a way to make sleeping on the floor look comfortable with his sleeping position. He was given a deer colored blanket that would have covered three of him.

The teen rubbed his eyes and began to wonder how he had fallen asleep so easily. He was wide awake when they were watching whatever that dick Eren put in the DVD player. He looked over at the freckled boy and weighed his options. Jean decided not to wake up their driver and just get up to get a glass of water. He could get water right? He was a guest and he thought he remembered the guy say they could get what they wanted from the kitchen when they were settling in.

Jean cursed at himself, it was halfway to four am and he knew he was stuck there until everyone woke up. At least until Marco woke up. The other three could find a way home, Jean was not going to walk all the way from Eren’s to his house. Trost was just across the train tracks and the cemetery, but that shit was spooky at night he’ll admit, to himself at least. And even if he overcame that, he lived on the other side of Trost, he would be poop tired by the time he got there and his mom would probably be awake and still at home before leaving for whatever plans she made for herself and her girlfriends.

He shuffled through the house slowly, making his way into the dark kitchen. He flipped the light switch on and started rummaging through the cupboards for a glass of some sort.

“You looking for something?”

Jean immediately felt his hairs rise on his neck and he used the fact that he had just woken up as an excuse to glare at the owner of the voice.

“Water,” he replied coldly.

Eren was sitting on the counter opposite Jean who had been looking through the cupboards on the other side of the fridge.

“Water’s in the fridge,” Eren said smuggly.

“And a glass to drink it in dumbass.”

The other male dropped his smug grin and just returned Jean’s sleepy glare. He twisted his torso around to pull open one of the doors to procure a small glass, one for Jean, and another for himself. He hopped off the granite counter shortly after and handed one glass to Jean as he opened the fridge door. Eren pulled out a pitcher of water and poured himself some water and then for his guest.

He did everything silently, drank his water, put away the pitcher, closed the fridge door, put his cup in the sink, everything. He hardly even looked at Jean as he did such things, just let Jean do his own thing and minded his own business.

The fact that the guy did all that made Jean taste bile.

Eren took notice as he was leaving the kitchen and turned on his heel, leaning back quite smoothly onto the wall. “What’s up?” He asked with the underlying tone of more, ‘you got the piss cup or you just like that?’ rather than actually asking how he was doing.

“Nothing,” Jean lied.

“Sure.” Eren didn’t believe him. But he left it at that. “Since you woke up, you can take one of the other guest rooms if you want. I don’t know how you feel about sleeping on a stranger’s couch so…”

“Then I bet you know less about how I feel about sleeping in a stranger’s guest room.”

“Hey, I’m just offering like the good host I am supposed to be.”

They stood there quietly for a few long minutes. Both with crossed arms and backs against something.

“Well where is it?”

Eren twisted his expression into the exact emotion Jean was feeling and Jean hated that he could express exactly what Jean was feeling without even knowing how he was feeling. “Well you didn’t tell me you wanted it or not.” He paused and sighed then pushed off the wall. “This way.”

The hall that they originally entered through lead to even more rooms the further past the staircase they went. Eren opened the door to one of the doors, it was by the restroom, but quickly closed it.

“Sorry, not this one.”

Jean raised one eyebrow and just gave Eren a look of disgust. Eren seemingly ignored it and rounded back to the staircase and took the steps by two. He rounded around the railing and ignored the next flight of stairs and stopped down the hallway at the second to last door.

“Restroom is next door,” Eren pointed at the door next to Jean’s. “I’m across the hall tonight, knock first.” He was about to leave Jean before Jean spoke up.

“I know my manners,” he paused. “Why’d you bring me to this one instead of the one downstairs? What's wrong with the one down there?”

The question seemed to put Eren in a tight spot. He shifted the weight of his feet and opened and closed his mouth. He seemed to debate whether or not to tell him and what he would say if he did tell him.

“Surprise guest.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so I did finish at like 1 am so there are bound to be many mistakes, I will proofread it and have my handy dandy human do it as well.
> 
> If you see mistakes in grammar and such you could also tell me! Or criticism. That is also welcome as long is it is not an outright hate message.


	2. What Friends?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jean is pretty sure all of his friends betrayed him and befriended his unofficial, unreasonable, new enemy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoy this... Trying to update at least once a month. Doing well so far... But trying to actually plan the chapters and have a decent length is hard...
> 
> Some worried Marco in this chapter.
> 
> Edit Jan/12/15: Making some correction but I am sure there are more to be made, tell me if you see any!

Eren didn’t stay long in the dim hallway to amuse Jean with answers to his questions. It only left a sour taste in his mouth knowing that Eren was hiding something. _Why do I care?_

Jean had watched Eren ignore any advancement of the conversation and disappear into his own room. He hadn’t even turned on the light upon entering and Jean thought it was odd. He did snicker a bit when he heard the heavy thump and felt the vibration of the brunet probably tripping and slamming into the floor.

The teen was left to his own devices and entered the bedroom. He flipped the light on and examined the room. The bed was pushed against the far corner with a dresser and TV opposite. The window was covered by the first thin, beige layer of curtains with the patterned drapes tied off to the sides. The bed looked thick with sheets and looked so comfortable. Jean wondered though if going back to sleep was worth it. He didn’t want to have to stay longer than he needed.

Jean halted thoughts about the bed for a moment to really think about the guy Eren. Jean wondered how anyone could be best friends with that guy.

 _Marco is bestfriend material, Armin sure, but a guy like Eren is just...What the fuck was that all about?  And what does he mean ‘I’m across the hall tonight,’ dick…_ Jean thought to himself as he pulled the quilt over him.

He had just shut his eyes when there was a light knock on the door. Jean was tempted to curse at the person on the other side of the door, but he was in someone else’s home, it was early morning, or late at night? Whatever, he wanted to but he was not going to shout at the door. He let a long exhale escape his lips.

Jean flipped the quilt off of himself and swung his legs off the bed, making it quickly to the door and nearly whacking himself with it upon opening it just as fast.

He was met with bright, unusually colored eyes again and he knew it was Eren. He was just a tad shorter than Jean, he noticed. His hair was a mess and he was missing his beanie from a couple of hours ago.

_Why was Jean choosing **now** to notice all of these features about the Eren guy? Now, when he was trying to hurry things along and attempt at a few hours of sleep._

Eren was surprised by how quickly the door was answered and he gawked at Jean for a brief moment. He recomposed himself quickly and held up a stack of clothes.

“What?” was all Jean said, giving the stack a quizzical look.

“What do you mean what. I thought that maybe you might want to borrow some pajamas, or are you gonna sleep the rest of the night in outside clothes?”

The taller of the two just squinted at the other as if he was trying to move him with his brain. “You think those’ll fit?”

“You’re hardly two inches taller than me, I’m pretty sure they’ll fit. And if you are so worried, I can get my dad’s clothes.” He continued to eye the clothes and it only made Eren scoff. “It’s not like back in the old days where they would poison clothes, why the heck would I ruin a good pair of pajamas with poison?”

Jean still wasn’t sold and asked, “Why am I the only one offered clothes?”

“You expect me to wake people up to have them change clothes? Why do you think they’re still on the couches? Is this fucking twenty questions?” Eren’s voice rose in volume.

Jean only matched the other and raised his as well. “You tell me, you’re asking as many questions as I am.”

“So you’re keeping count? Wha-,” Eren stopped himself and sighed. He shut his eyes and counted to ten. “Look, are you taking the damn pajamas or not?”

There was silence between them once again. Not as long as it was back down in the kitchen, but fairly long for just a yes or no answer. Eren was beginning to become even more irritated and was ready to just leave altogether with the clothes when Jean extended his arm a bit.

Eren looked at the hand and at Jean. “Yes, I’ll take ‘the damn pajamas,’”

The brunet placed the neatly folded clothes on Jean’s pale hand, unintentionally brushing each other during the exchange.

 _I swear to fuck this guy is gay,_ Jean quickly thought.

“G’night,” Eren said as he disappeared once again behind his door. The sound of falling onto the floor lacking this time.

“Fuck you,” he muttered once he was sure he heard the door shut. He shut his door as well and quickly undid his belt and stripped to his underwear. The pajamas were soft, good for the in between weather of transitioning from warm to cold and vice versa. He was given a yellow, brown, black and grey plaid pajama bottoms that were probably made of the softest cotton ever. The top was a simple grey long sleeved shirt. It was thinner than he expected but he didn’t care, it was fucking soft.

The teen balled up his clothes and placed them on the dresser and went back to laying on the bed under the quilt. He didn’t want to make too much of a mess of the room so he tried to sleep on one side of the bed.

* * *

 

It was uncomfortable sleeping on just one side of the bed. Jean wondered how he was able to not shift in his sleep. Then again he was mostly half-awake for the remainder of the night, morning?,  and by the time he heard birds wake him from his light slumber, he had just gotten used to the position.

It was evident in Jean’s groaning that he was reluctant to leave the bed just yet and thought about sleeping in. School was really hurting his sleep lately. The window let in quite a bit of morning light and though pleasing in movies, it was just an eyesore, quite literally, for Jean. He saw the digital clock on the dresser, reading nine am give or take. He had slept maybe five hours since he last woke up and it made him groan even louder.

Jean pulled himself upright and sat on the edge of the bed. He rubbed the sleep away from his eyes and took a better look outside the window. The sky was still tinted with orange rays that broke through the thin early clouds.

He didn’t think sitting on the guest bed was going to get him anywhere near home, so he slid off the bed until his feet planted themselves firmly on the floor. He walked over to the door and went out into the hall and gave a onceover of the area. He turned to his left and found himself in the bathroom the guy had pointed out earlier.

The male immediately went for the sink and splashed water on his face. He grabbed for the towel and wiped the cold droplets off.

“Oh,” he said realizing he was wearing that guy’s, Eren’s, pajamas. “Why the fuck was he awake last night? Where the fuck did Armin go? Why the fuck am I still here?” He pondered aloud.

Jean didn’t want to waste anymore time hanging out in Shinganshina and was struggling to pull the shirt over his head as he exited the bathroom and tried to feel around for the guest room door. He had one arm still in the sleeve as he started pulling the plaid waistband over his hips and grunted as he shook off the pajamas. He nearly face planted onto the rug as he entered the room and feeling for his own clothes.

“Hey, uh, breakfast is ready.”

Jean just about launched himself out of the window when he heard the familiar voice he’d been hearing all night. He was hardly decent as he faced the figure in the doorway.

He glared at Eren, who was still in his pajamas, and shouted, “What the fuck!?”

“You left the door open,” he said instantly irritated. “Everyone’s downstairs already eating and if you want to have breakfast you might want to hurry up.” He left, giving no time for Jean to reply with a snarky comeback.

It was six minutes after the morning meeting with Eren that he was entering the dining room that was adjacent to the kitchen. He had ignored everyone on the way in, his mind elsewhere.

Connie could be heard telling jokes with Sasha, or to Sasha, as she was busily eating some scrambled eggs. Her only reactions were muffled laughs. Marco seemed to be laughing while he was eating something as well. Armin was too, though between words. Eren just looked the same, irritated but blushing in embarrassment at something.

“Hey hey!” Connie called over. “You missed some great stories about Eren, Jean! Tell it again Armin, c’mon!”

“It’s not even funny!” Eren cried before chugging down a glass of orange juice.

“Eren,” Armin started before he let out a breathy laugh. “It really is.”

“What’s the fucking story then?” Jean inquired as he took the only seat not occupied, which was unfortunately on the other side of Eren. He didn’t make a move to grab a plate or any food.

Armin calmed down and put down his fork. “Well it goes like this, back in the eighth grade, we were at some old, one of a kind half fast food, half restaurant and bar joint downtown. And there was this one, and I quote, ‘smoking hot guy’ working the register that day. Well most of the staff was good looking but Eren specifically called this guy out.” At this point Eren made an effort to make it look like he was unaffected by the tale anymore and busied himself with finishing all the cereal in his bowl with aggressive motions. “So we were hanging out there, just us three and Eren had gotten his usual extremely spicy pasta, why, we don’t know but it is actually really good, and he always needs a lot of Mountain Dew or other soda brand for added effect.” Connie was giggling in his seat and so was Sasha, this was probably where the story is supposed to get funny, Jean thought. “He went up to the counter for a refill and the guy asked for Eren to take his top off.”

“And Eren shouted, ‘whoa, why do I have to take off my shirt for a refill?! I’m not a hooker!’” A somewhat monotone voice said from the kitchen entrance.

“Shut up Mikasa!” Eren shouted as he nearly choked on his cereal. Mikasa walked around the table and stood next to Eren, who happened to be at the head of the table, and smiled at him teasingly.

Jean looked up at the mention of her name and his eyes went wide. _Holy shit_. What was the Asian beauty of Trost High doing here? Extremely smart and fighting for the title of most athletic female of the junior class for 2014, she was all around perfect. When did she get back from her student trip to the private school up in Stohess? Wasn’t she supposed to be gone a week?

“Gah haha! It’s funnier when Mikasa tells it!” Connie blurted, spitting everywhere.

“My god Connie, cover your mouth,” Eren threatened.

Jean had raised his head and continued to examine her form.  Her walk was model worthy but her posture while standing had an angelic elegance to it. In his opinion it graced the very room and made staying overnight at that guy’s house ten times more worth it. _And she’s in athletic clothes, does she run in the morning?_ Jean thought to himself, noting the bright running shorts that were high on her pale thighs. Taking in the fact that her shirt was still sort of sticking to her from breaking a sweat during her exercise. Her hair was pulled back in a messily tied ponytail, and Jean just about lost it when he noticed up close the few strands of hair that clung to her forehead. For once he was able to see her slim neck that was usually covered by a scarf or jacket. He took in the sights and burned it into his memory.

_Damn. I have it bad._

Jean was brought back to reality for a split second as his major crush for about all of  junior high and high school spoke. “It’s okay Eren, the guy thought you were ‘smoking hot’ too, so he secretly enjoyed the misunderstanding,” she teased.

Jean, still not quite there because of the sudden entry of Mikasa, suddenly blurt out the question from the back of his brain that had come up during the telling of Eren’s embarrassing story. “Eren’s gay?”

It wasn’t exactly a morning topic. And coming from the guy who hates his guts it was probably not the best thing to ask so bluntly in his own home.

Armin looked at Eren, probably making sure he doesn’t do anything rash. Mikasa looked at Jean, not giving anything away about what she was thinking, but Jean gulped involuntarily once he realized she was looking at him.

Connie and Sasha stayed quiet too while Eren just turned in his seat and looked at Jean. He didn’t make any expressions either, or voiced anything, he just stared and it ticked off Jean.

Jean hated that Eren narrowed his eyes at him with an underlying tone of enmity. Jean hated that he was taking the time to notice all of Eren’s feature once again, his eyes especially. They were brighter than normal and the light that reflected through the window hit his eyes at such an angle it made it glow almost. It gave an over laying effect over the whites of his eyes and it made him freeze. He pulled his eyes away to look at anything else. Jean hated that he could make his disheveled hair look like a fashion trend from any woman's hair salon magazine and that he had the face shape for some of the Korean pop stars he saw some girls fangirl over during lunch. _Don’t go fucking celebrity bitch face on me!_ Jean wanted to pick a fight with the reaction Eren gave him, purposefully denying that he was in the wrong by asking a very personal question.

Before Jean could add anything else and actually pick a fight Eren answered.

“No, I don’t identify with anything.” Jean probably made a face without realizing it because he could hear him sigh before he saw him actually react. “Technically if I had to tell you, people would say I’m pan but I honestly don’t care to use terms with sexuality and gender. And in case you were wondering, yes I’m fucking male.”

It was silent for a minute. Eren went back to eating just as Sasha and Connie did. Armin began to eat warily and Miksa just stared at the two-toned haired male. Jean didn’t look at her for a moment, but finding that she was not going to move he glanced up at her.

She was silent and still. Still standing in a somewhat refined manner.

“You’re in my seat,” she finally stated calmly.

Jean opened his mouth and without questioning or making any fuss, got up and looked around the table as Mikasa slid into the seat. The seat next to Eren. Eren stopped spooning food into his mouth to reach over to grab one of the plates left in the stack of porcelain colored plates and placed it in front of Mikasa. She murmured a ‘thank you’ and started putting food on her plate. _Oh. Fuck you Eren, gotta be the nice guy here-_  Jean shut down his internal cursing and scanned the dining room where he found that there was no where else to sit. He didn’t want to attract attention to himself by standing so he went into the kitchen where Marco followed shortly behind, being the only one who seemed to care that he was left seatless.

There was a half-door curtain that separated the dining from the kitchen and Jean had nearly knocked the curtains off as he stormed into the kitchen. Marco didn’t barge in as harshly.

Jean seemed to be seething and paced around the kitchen that was still heavy with the scent of breakfast. The area was spotless though and the fact that he could smell the food but not taste it or see the mess that should come of it made Jean even more irritated in some other worldly manner.

“Jean, calm down,” Marco had whispered.

“I am perfectly calm!” Though Marco knew the truth having been able to read Jean quite well for some time.

“Now you’re yelling, inside voices.” Marco reprimanded as if speaking to a toddler. He jerked his chin to the open doorway that was only covered by a few feet in length of thin fabric. Jean stopped pacing and rested his butt on one of the many granite counters lining the walls while Marco stayed near the kitchen island, resting an arm on it.

Marco stayed silent as he watched his friend tap his toe and cross his arms tighter over his chest.

“Why is the one and only Mikasa Ackerman doing in fucking Eren what's-his-face’s house?!” Jean whisper-shouted.

“It’s Jaeger,”Marco corrected.

“Do I look like I fucking care?!”

“You’re shouting again,” the freckled boy noted worriedly. “Let’s go into the other room, I don’t want to disturb them.”

“Why? So that he doesn’t realize your best friend’s a-,”

Marco cut off Jean and put up a waving hand to stop him altogether. He made a face that was sort of worried yet irritated at the same time. He looked his friend in the eyes meaningfully and asked, “Jean why are you so pissed?”

The male straightened up and looked at Marco like he had just insulted him. _Why was he angry?  Why wasn’t he?!_ Jean just clicked his tongue and looked away to the sink that had drying kitchenware laying in the sink. Jean didn’t know, but he felt like he could make up some bullshit answer just to satisfy the other until he came to some realization why he was being such a jerk-face.

Jean just hissed through his teeth and glared at the innocent cooking pan before he looked back at Marco whose personal bubble was being invaded by the close proximity of the fucker walking by.

He almost tripped him. He really almost did.

But Eren strolled along, stacks of plates in hands and began to slowly descend to place them into the lower rack of the washing machine that hardly looked used. _Why wash it manually when you have a fucking dishwasher?_ Jean just couldn’t seem to stop questioning everything about Eren.

“Hey,” a pleasant voice called. Jean looked up and his initial irritation from earlier had subsided when he saw that it was Mikasa who was talking to him.

“Hey,” he responded stiffly.

“I didn’t know you didn’t eat yet, I thought you had finished earlier than the others.  There is still food at the table and I already set a place for you to eat.” Jean internally cried, she didn’t have to do that for him. It was that guy’s job to be the good host and set it up for him!

Marco watched from behind Mikasa, his expression also becoming more positive and sort of giddy. He knew how much Jean was head over heels crushing on Mikasa and he was just playing his part of the good best friend who cheers on from the sidelines at every interaction they have.

Eren had finished putting the plates away and seemingly went back for more dishes, but that was a back of the brain thing for Jean. He was more focused on how sweaty his palms were.

“I-It’s alright, thanks,” he managed to say through barely moving lips. He could feel his mouth dry up and his neck get hot. This was the closest he’s ever been to her with her actually initiating some sort of conversation outside of class  and not just to make him get out of a seat like earlier.

She nodded and walked out of the kitchen and Jean just watched. Watched her turn the corner with such a refined walk as he stiffly high fived Marco as he mentioned something about going to join the others in the entertainment area.

All the negative thoughts had floated away and he felt quite content with the kindness that his darling crush had shown.

“So that’s the _surprise guest_ ,” Eren had said as soon as Jean passed through the curtains. His back was facing the far wall and he was busy with cleaning up the table, picking up the placemats left behind but the food that still sat there.

Jean had made a face and said nothing.

He found himself sitting at the table once again, same place he had previously occupied and helped himself to some eggs and one of the two pancakes left.  But the comment Eren had made bothered him and he had opened his mouth to speak as soon as he swallowed a bite of scrambled eggs.

“What d’ya mean by that?”

“Well she was on that trip for Stohess and got back earlier than planned and since her parents were still out of town as well, my dad had picked her up so that she didn’t have to get a taxi or bother a friend to drive her so out of the way.”

Eren had cleaned off the mats and rolled each one up separately and stacked them on the side into a pyramid. He had moved on to straightening up the food that had fallen on the table, picking up each piece carefully and precisely.

“Why you?”

“Family friends,” Eren hadn’t seemed so pissed Jean saw. Answering his questions without much pause to think or to retort. He had spoken fluidly as if he had rehearsed the answers. “She stays the night randomly sometimes, likes visiting us because she misses my parents and I. Hardly see her at school and she gets worried that I still get into fights. She was always worried about me even before. We practically lived together and we even were raised in the same house from eight to fifteen years old. Parents went off for some important family things, I don’t even remember.”

Jean had taken three more bites by the time Eren had finished his second explanation, finishing his room temperature eggs. He felt the twitch of his mouth but he wasn’t about to go getting angry… just yet.

He leaned over the table, resting his head on his hand, fork suspended in the air with the other hand with just a thumb and index finger, playing with it. He watched Eren collect the food in one cupped hand and continue to the other side of the table.

“Fights? Well I guess you look like the rebellious type,” Jean said plainly. Eren looked up long enough to give Jean a look that was somewhat threatening but he quickly went back to cleaning up.

“Yeah, fights. Have a record for dealing broken noses, nails, arms, legs, and a few concussions and... one cracked skull.” It sounded as if Eren was bitter about talking about it and it only made Jean pursue the topic over learning about his past with Mikasa. Asking about it may make him just punch the guy.

“I think I heard that ‘bout you somewhere,” Jean hummed contemplatively. “What made you stop?”

Eren had glanced up again and this time the brightness of his eyes was apparent to Jean even though there was a shadow cast on his face. Jean swallowed and sat up. He pouted and changed his grip to a firm one on his fork. He finished up his food before getting up to leave.

“Do you mind taking your plate to the dishwasher?” Eren asked, the hint of bitterness gone from his voice.

Jean didn’t respond with words but with a simple, che, and did what he was asked of anyway. Eren was soon behind him, placing the rest of the empty plates and utensils into the washer while Jean was getting up.

“You play any instruments, Jean?” Eren had suddenly asked while closing the door to the dishwasher.

“What’s that all of a sudden?”

“I saw you eyeing my drums yesterday, I also know the difference between musicians and non-musicians. Look at their hands and how they hold things.”

Jean looked at Eren with the same face he had been giving him basically all night, minus when he was admiring the drumming. He didn't like his tone and felt like he was talking down to him.

“I can play guitar, I sing, I know how to drum but it’s not my forte. I took some piano lessons when I was younger but dropped that for guitar and singing.”

Eren had simply nodded and wiped his hands on a dish towel while looking up at the pendulum clock.

“Cool,” he said before walking out without another word, seemingly preoccupied with another thought on his mind.

_What the fuck._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will get this proofread... Sorry for errors, you can help by pointing them out as well. (finished at like 2 am almost)  
> Tell me what you think will happen next? I just really want to get some sort of feedback, it would be great!


	3. E-R-E-N  J-special A thing-G-E-R

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jean finally gets to leave his personal hell hole. But leaving that guy's home doesn't mean that is the last he will sees of or hears about him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this is also a not so good chapter in my opinion but I am finally getting a better grasp of the story better than the last time. WHEW! Happily still making monthly updates, I am trying my best to keep a schedule and update around the middle of each month.
> 
> BTW I would love feedback. I have gotten a lovely comment thus far and it really helps me continue writing when I know that even a few people are enjoying my 'dweeb' Jean. (I feel like this is a shorter chapter... No idea).

When he reunited with his  _actual_ friends he could see the relief in Marco’s eyes when he saw Jean join them. Marco wouldn’t admit it but he was worried Jean would pick a fight with Eren, which they verbally have done already, then sighed, content. Jean had squeezed in between Marco and Armin, making use of the foot rest as well.

Mikasa had already reappeared dressed much more casually for comfort with her hair dripping wet. Jean had ignored once again the conversation going on to his side while the movie scene selection screen was up. He had leaned back and got comfortable while keeping his eyes in the direction of Mikasa, but made sure to not actually look at her. His hands were brought up to his face and covered his mouth thoughtfully.

The two-toned-haired-teen was thoroughly examining the features of Mikasa’s wet hair, fresh out of the shower which she quickly took not too long ago.

Marco had joined the conversation with Armin about the actors in the movie (he wasn’t sure when they had started watching movies, he thought they were still watching… He didn’t even remember anymore), and Sasha was just adding in her two cents every so often with Connie. It seemed that they decided to finish their last movie before they head home and by the way they were sitting, they had all gotten extremely _close_ over one night. Sasha was practically sitting in Connie’s and Marco’s laps and Armin had turned his body so he was partially laying on Mikasa  and had somehow made his way to using a portion of Jean’s leg as a foot rest. Jean didn’t really care though.

The movie began repeating a portion of a scene they had already seen apparently. Jean had torn his eyes away from Mikasa and tried to watch the movie. Jean had limited himself to only cursory glances at Mikasa every time a specific character talked.

His mind wandered as the movie went on. He was only pulled out of his reverie and immediately disgusted by the presence of Eren taking the last bit of space next to Mikasa. He quickly mumbled something to her and she mumbled something back. He raised an arm and put it on the back of the couch behind Mikasa’s head, getting comfortable. It took everything in Jean’s will capacity to not react to such as simple action.

The movie went on for forty minutes and forty minutes was just too long for Jean. The image of Eren sitting so closely to Mikasa was stuck in his brain, burnt at the back of his eyelids when he blinked. He could pick out the voice and breathing of Eren and it was throwing him into an eternal pit of annoyance.

He could feel someone squeeze his thigh gently and he looked up to glare at them initially but lost the motive when he saw Marco’s kind, umber, eyes. He sighed because he knew what Marco was going to ask but kept it circulating in his thoughts until Jean had replied in some way.

“You worry too much,” he had whispered in his ear before pulling back to try and focus on the movie. Marco was unmoved and squeezed his thigh again and Jean just slapped his hand away.

* * *

            “See ya, Jaeger!” Connie called from the doorway all smiles.

            “Shut up, you’ll wake my mom,” Eren said lightheartedly. He walked over to the front door and leaned against the doorframe, standing quite casually and friendly compared to how the air about him usually was like.

            “Thanks for letting us stay the night,” Marco added as he finished lacing his shoes and walking out the door. Jean had followed behind with a pissed expression, though he felt relieved to finally be leaving.

            Armin followed behind after declining Eren’s offer to take him home himself so he could also visit his grandpa and apologize for keeping him out so late. Everyone had filed out into the street and waved farewell as they trekked back to Marco’s car. The only one who hadn’t left was Mikasa.

            Jean of course noticed this but tried to act indifferent about it and picked up his pace. It would take seven more minutes to reach the car on foot.

            “Well that was fun,” Sasha had said breaking the group’s traveling silence once they all packed themselves into the car. Marco drove, Jean, who grumbled at her comment, took shotgun; Armin took the left door while Sasha took the middle, leaving the right door to Connie. Honestly it would have made more sense for Armin or Connie to sit in the middle but they had won a bet against her so she would have to suffer in the small midsection of the car.

            They pulled out of the parking space and carefully drove onto the street, pinpointing each street name on which they would then turn onto. It was probably almost noon by the time they had reached the town’s limits before crossing over into Trost. It wasn’t that far away, but far enough that walking would be a hassle to any lazy teen on weekends.

The cemetery was about half the distance of the entire stretch from Shinganshina to Trost but the rest of the distance was the train tracks and a park just outside which was an unusual placement but the area was old and they worked with what they had. There was even a few shops and restaurants on the other side of the road that connected the two towns but not a lot. The road was ten minutes drive because of the speed limit but to actually get anywhere recognizable in either towns they’d have to drive another 5 or  so minutes since the outskirts of both towns were just neighborhoods.

            Marco flicked his eyes into the rearview mirror to look at Armin as he continued to watch the scenery out the window. He had yawned before he realized he was being watched. The blond boy smiled gently back into the mirror and Marco finally looked back at the sparsely populated road.

            “Are you close to Mikasa as well?” Marco finally asked, changing gears as they passed the Wendy’s. Jean shifted his eyes onto Marco but kept his head forward.

            “Well, yeah, she was the Hermione to our Harry and Ron I guess you could say. She’s the daughter of 0ne of Mr. Jaeger’s, Eren’s dad, patients for their special condition that run’s in her family. They became close friends and that’s how the two met and Eren soon introduced us to each other. She was always the listener of our group and followed the flow of things until Eren got us into trouble. Then she would take charge,” Armin paused and looked back at the horizon, filled with far off buildings from the base of Trost soon coming into view.  He was smiling as he did this and Marco noticed that. Sasha and Connie stayed quiet as everyone else did, assuming he would continue.

            “I was the kid who would get picked on because my parents were avid travelers for work so I would have been almost always alone; I was too young and my grandpa was too old to continuously follow after. Though he lives in Trost, better for his health anyway, he would always pack up enough things to stay in Shinganshina with me so I wouldn’t have to leave Eren,” the smile faded from his features and it was just a blank slate as he spoke about himself. “They always said their home was Shinganshina so there wasn’t a reason to move anyway. I only moved to Trost to stay with my grandpa as of late because the education is better, he hasn’t been the healthiest lately, and my parents won’t be back for at least a year as of August. I thought that I should learn to not rely on Eren so much anymore and do something for myself.”

There was another long pause and Sasha shifted in her seat. “Eren kept me company and beat up my bullies who made fun of me for wanting to leave. Of course Eren shared my dreams of wanting to see more than the old brick buildings Shinganshina inherited from it’s history. But it seems that it will take a bit longer for us to really accomplish it.”

            The air in the car was a bit stuffy to Jean’s disliking and cracked open his window to let some air flow in. “You make him sound so great,” he muttered behind a fisted hand.

            “He is,” Armin quickly replied. “To me and Mikasa at least,” he added distastefully and he furrowed his eyebrows.

Marco flashed his eyes again into the rearview mirror with worried eyes. He had been technically friends with Armin a couple of weeks, and Armin had been attending school since the start of that school year. He could feel himself ache with emotions that would only spawn from watching a friend who was in some sort of internal storm.

“Eren isn’t the best at befriending others, he can be too hardheaded and takes offense quite easily and is prone to pick fights, but he is great to me. I don’t think Mikasa and I could ever be who we are now without him.“

“It depends on where you stand in his eyes I guess. I was a kid who needed help and was weak, so the hero-mind-set in him kicked in and he became the kid who beat up my bullies without realizing how much injuries he had been inflicted in the process. He’s gotten better, he hasn’t gotten into any fights lately and… I’m sorry what am I saying, you guys don’t want to hear this.”

Jean had turned around to quickly get a glimpse of the boy and clicked his tongue involuntarily. Armin had clenched his teeth and his eyes seemed darker than Jean remembered. He hadn’t noticed that he had dark circles similar to that of a sleep deprived person. _Was he up all night? Now that I think about it, Eren was up when I woke up the first time. Where was Armin then?_

Armin didn’t finish his sentence and he had brought his arm up so that his left elbow could rest on the door. He bent his arm to bring his fingers to pinch the bridge of his nose and he shut his eyes. Jean could feel the regret coming off in waves from the backseat.

Connie tried to comfort him and said that it wasn’t something to worry about and that he was actually interested but Armin didn’t open up again. It wasn’t hard to tell that Armin was beating himself up for sharing so much personal information that wasn’t even his to share. He wasn’t a bad guy but no one knew what to say to him and now they knew more about the green-eyed boy from the Shinganshina Festival Band.

No one was going to say though that they had wanted to know more. This was the same guy they saw but never talked to before. He was friends with the popular, athletic-beauty Mikasa Ackerman who happened to be at his house the night they officially met him and is best friends with Armin who was number one in the knowledge department. Normally a guy with a record of picking fights and breaking faces would stereotypically be stupid and need summer school to keep up but this guy was in AP classes like no one's business. He already had a name for himself, even if he kept quiet and hardly ever showed up around school anyway. His personality irritated some, Jean specifically, but turned on others.   _Just who the fuck is this guy?!_

            They had finally pushed past the first set of houses in Trost and the streets were familiar once again,

            “Ah!” Marco exclaims as he looks at the dashboards digital clock. Everyone gives him a concerned look and his voice rises to match that of a joking tone. “My curfew was 12 hours ago!”

            Armin’s lips curved slightly behind his hand at that sudden realization as Connie cackles at his freckled friend.

            “Wonder what Mama-Bodt’s gonna do to you when you get home, I hope you don’t get your chemistry set taken away!” Connie cheerfully said.

            “No way...” Marco muttered sarcastically.

            “She might just take away your special edition Pokemon 3DS as well,” Armin added quietly. Sasha belted out a string of laughs and snorts at that comment and started bouncing back and forth in her seat.

“What a nerd,” Jean finally said with a smile crossing his face.

“Says the guy with Pokemon bedsheets and slippers,” Marco accused and Jean turned his smile into a playful, yet embarrassed pout and looked back out the window.

Sasha was smacking her hand on her thigh now and her laughs became exaggerated breathing, no sound was coming out and Connie started to choke on his own laughs. Sasha missed her thigh when Marco turned down a street passing the corner store owned by the Wagners and accidentally hit Connie.

“Hey! The hell?!” Connie roared between his still on-going laughs. He smacked Sasha back and she whined before returning the assault.

            “It was an accident! God Connie!” she giggled.

            Armin had been quietly laughing in the seat next to the raging female and Marco smiled. Jean looked back quickly and smiled as well. Jean wasn’t sure if he considered Armin his friend yet, but he was glad that his friend’s friend was smiling again.

* * *

Marco had turned down the volume on the radio just as some indie band started playing and rolled down his window. “You sure you both don’t want me to just give you a ride home?”

Sasha shook her head and Connie just smiled brightly.

“Nah, the bus takes us close enough that we can walk the rest of the way, I mean, for me it does,” Connie looked up at Sasha who just gave an aggressive nod.

“Yep yep, It’d be too much work to have you drive me all the way to the woods anyway, thanks Marco!”

“Oh, Armin, if you see Eren before I do, tell him he’s a great cook! I don’t think I told him that enough!”

“Sure,” he replied with a sheepish smile. “Pretty sure he’d say the same thing he said this morning.”

“Take care,” Marco said ending the short conversation and began to drive back down the road.

Marco had dropped off Sasha and Connie at the oldest bookstore in town which happened to be next to the bus station that would take them home. The two quickly immersed themselves in a topic unknown to those around them as they waited for the bus.

“Eren cooked that?” Jean immediately asked as soon as the window was rolled up again.

“Yeah, it was a simple breakfast but it tasted so good!”

“Eren took on cooking as a job originally when his mother was ill and he ended up making it his pass time when there was nothing to do. It distracts him a little he says,” Armin had said.

Jean nodded slowly and could feel his face scrunch up in yet another wave of irritation at any mention relating to that Eren guy. He didn’t push for any more information and watched the road with Marco.

The car was silent for a few minutes, with just music and the running car engine to fill the space. Armin had quickly gone back to looking out the window watching the building pass. It wasn’t long until Marco stopped in front of a plain five story apartment complex. Armin quickly opened the door and crawled out.

“Thanks for inviting me to hang out, Marco,” Armin said poking his head back into the car before he closed the door.

Marco was going to say ‘don’t mention it,” but Armin had already shut the door and was opening the door to the building and could be seen rushing up the stairs as the door swung closed behind him.

* * *

            Jean wasn’t entirely sure what he was going to do for the rest of the weekend. The biggest highlight thus far was that he found out that the major hottie of his dreams was extremely close friends with the bastard he hardly knew and hardly could stand to even think about.

            The teen was laying on his half-made bed with one of his old Pokemon plushies tightly clenched in his folded arms. He stared at the years old glow in the dark stickers on the ceiling and rolled his tongue uncomfortably in its little pocket in his mouth.

            “Fuck him, fuck him, fuck him…” he began to chant as he remembered the maroon beanie that matched the blanket that was placed on top of him when he first fell asleep. He recalled the perfectly created expressions and the brightness of the guy’s eyes and how they could probably light a fire with how much emotion was hidden behind his eyes.

            Jean let go of his Charmander plush and began to pull hard at his blond locks that contrasted his undercut. “FUCK! HIM!” he roared as he rolled all over his bed before falling onto the floor that met him like a bus. “SHIT!”

            “JEAN!” he could hear his mother call from downstairs. She had returned early because supposedly half her friends had made other plans to see a movie she already watched and quite aggressively hated. “YOU COME DOWN HERE THIS INSTANT!”

            “OH FUCK OFF MOM!”

            “WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?!” his mother roared back only closer to his door than the last time.

            “Nothing, nothing!” he quickly muttered loud enough for his mother to hear, knowing she was probably now beside his door.

            He could hear her heavy footsteps recede down the hallway and only when he couldn’t hear them anymore did he sigh in relief.

            Jean thought about doing some homework to get his mind off of the fucker named Eren but he didn’t really feel like tackling numbers and history right then. He decided it was better to scroll through his accumulating notifications on all of his social media and he pulled out his phone from his back pocket.

            Only it wasn’t in his pocket.

            How the hell did he lose his phone when he didn’t even use it the entire time he was out last night?

            _Don’t tell me…_ Jean began in his thoughts. _I didn’t fucking leave it at…. Damn it all!_

Jean rolled over onto his back and sat up quickly, a bit too quickly as his head began to pound with lightheadedness. He got up after resting a few moments and pulled out his stupid, old laptop that was missing the battery so it always had to be plugged in. He meant to buy another battery or a new laptop altogether but he kept spending his money on different things.

            He waited for the internet page to load and he opened up Facebook and looked through his friends list. Only to remember that he didn’t even really meet Eren until last night so he probably didn’t even have him in his friends list.

            Yet again he was wrong about that as well, he was about to scroll for Armin’s name to send him a message to tell Eren what had happened when he noticed an oddly spelled name that he didn’t remember.

            “E-R-E-N? Who the fuck spells their kid’s name so fucking ghetto like that? Damn Eren, you are one fucked up kid… J-special A thing-G-E-R, damn what even…” Marco’s voice resounded in Jean’s head and he remembered Marco correct him earlier that day that it was ‘Yay-ger’ or something like that. Jean scoffed and clicked the name.

            “Fuck it is him,” he muttered under his breath as he scrolled Eren’s profile. His icon was of him with his drums in some tacky uniform in the middle of formation near the front. His cover photo was of him, Mikasa, and Armin all in their casual clothes sitting on the edge of the castle’s edge on Shinganshina’s hill, otherwise known as Castle hill, with the countryside in the background and the sun setting. He realized it was near where he was hanging out with his friends last night and Jean quickly scrolled away. “When did I even add him? Why did I even add him?”

            The most recent post was a shared photo from 9gag with his own added caption, it was only five minutes ago at 1:33.

            Jean felt a shiver run up his spine as he clicked the message button and started typing to him. He wasn’t sure how to type since everyone typed differently, was he a grammar nazi like Armin was apparently, or did he go stereotypical girl-text-talk? _Why am I worrying over my texting style?_

 

            _hey its jean was there a phone left at your house_

_a nokia lumia_

           

            Jean leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms and waited. He felt impatiently suddenly, he started to bounce his leg under his desk and he couldn’t stare at his laptop screen anymore. He let his eyes wander away before he quickly redirected his eyes back to the screen as he saw movement. Eren had seen the message bus was not yet replying.

            His eyebrows creased together and his nose twitched like a rabbits and he continued to wait. _Maybe he went to go check the house for a phone._

            Brown eyes began to wander around his somewhat cramped room, he really needed to clean it up like his mother kept nagging him to do, and he found his dusty drums sitting in the corner with his guitar sitting in its stand just in front of it. He had long shoved his keyboard away in his closet somewhere and replaced it with drums. It just sat there, waiting to be played. He remembered how beautiful the heavy beats of the drums last night sounded. They resonated so loudly even in the gusty winds that threatened to carry their rhythm away from them. Jean loved drums, they were the heart of everything. They kept everyone else in order with their steady beat.

            There was a message accompanied with a ding and Jean grumbled a ‘finally’ before reading the short message that took ages to be sent.

           

            _come to the hospital_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are definitely errors in this one but hey, I sorta fixed the first two chapters! I'll have my human proofread this soon so I can fix it ASAP. You can help me by telling me simple mistakes as well.


	4. Phone Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jean is off to retrieve his cellular device. He hopes to get in and out but that definitely won’t happen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I waited until Valentine’s Day to post hah. I am still horrible at checking for errors so… sorry. I am updating them as I find errors still and updating monthly as usual. I would appreciate it if you leave comments on what you think, thanks for reading!  
> BTW… Jean’s a Swiftie. JK he just likes her music.

            Maybe it was the way it had the lack of any expression in the four words that were sent to him that threw Jean in a fit of mixed feelings. He felt angry at first that this was all he was going to get as a response, then he felt confused because Eren was at the hospital and he somewhat felt worried about that because wasn’t it human to worry if someone went to the hospital? Then he realized he was worried. _Why? Agh… Hospital? Damn._

            Jean didn’t consider the guy any more a friend than he considers Ms. Zoe a proper science teacher. (She had recently joined the staff at Trost when the school year started and she was really making a name for herself by allowing kids mix anything they find into their chemicals. You know? For Science.)

            Jean replied simply with an ‘ _okay’_ without a second thought. He shut his laptop gently and reached for a sweatshirt from his pile of half clean, half worn once, clothes at the end of his bed and shimmied into it. He gave himself a quick sniff and raised an eyebrow. “Eh.” _Still clean._ He felt around his pockets for his wallet and left his room quickly, giving the light switch a firm flick as he did so.

            He thumped down the stairs and quickly turned into the kitchen where he was sure his mother was with the smell that was wafting through the house.

            “I need the car, I’m meeting up with a friend,” he said involuntarily. Eren was not his friend. He was a friend of a friend of a friend. He kicked himself internally and rested his arms on the counter waiting for a response.

            “Key’s in my purse be back by eleven this time,” his mother said dully while stirring the pot of deliciousness. She tasted the sauce with a spoon and smacked her lips loudly. “Needs salt…” She had most certainly calmed down from just a few moments ago and almost sounded defeated.

            Jean’s response was a simple ‘yeah yeah’ as he rummaged through the large black bag of feminine things, pads, tampons, lip gloss... He swung the key on his finger through the ring once before catching it and heading toward the front door. As he passed the hall’s closet door mirror he gave himself a quick glance over like he always did.

            The sweatshirt he had on was a solid red athletic sweatshirt and it kinda matched the shoes which he was sliding his feet into. He bared his teeth and examined the spaces between and licked the fronts of his top teeth. It was sort of a routine for him.

_Okay, I’ll go. I am going to get my phone back and I **will not** wait until Monday for a chance encounter in the bathroom or some shit like that. I’m going to just go to the hospital and get what belongs to me back. Yeah. Not going to stay any longer than that because I don’t need to see his criminal face again._

            Criminal?

            Jean dismissed his unique and assumingly out of place insult and ran out to the car, giving the front door a kick to shut it. He let the car warm up as he found a more bearable radio station to listen to. It didn’t occur to Jean that Eren hadn’t told him which hospital. There was one in Shinganshina but it was more of a clinic in comparison to the hospital in Trost.

_Well, people of Shinganshina are usually taken to Trost for majority of medical things…_

            Jean put the car in reverse and pulled out of the driveway, nearly hitting the mailbox as he almost always did.

_Fuck you mailbox._

* * *

 

            It had been two Taylor Swift songs later by the time he had reached the hospital. It normally took around five to ten minutes to drive and maybe twenty or so to walk there. The hospital was small when you looked at it but was a large maze when you first entered. Jean considered himself lucky to not have had the need to become acquainted with the layout of the place. It was a bit creepy anyway.

            Jean had parked in the visitor parking lot next to a silver Honda Accord. His red Toyota Corolla he realized matched his outfit and it caused him to involuntarily cringe at the coincidence. He wasn’t really annoyed by it though, it was just a passing thought; matching outfits with his mom’s car.

            He passed the many rows of vehicles with long strides. The breeze was fair and pushed a few loose leaves into his path which he soon crunched with his sneakers. He walked into the hospital’s waiting room with a purpose as he recognized the smell of a clean world that hid disease and death under it. He knew the facts, hospitals can be pretty nasty and he didn’t like needles. Not a lot of fond memories of them. He didn’t fear them, he just hated that stuff. Also the fact that a lot of people visited the hospital regularly and many were basically tenants there; it just made visiting the hospital all the more unpleasant to Jean.

            He stopped square in the middle of the intersection that lead to hallways leading to the OR and ER and other places that Jean did not care to name as he scanned the area, flashing a quick smile at the lady at the front desk who was on the phone. The waiting area was filled with mostly mothers, a child or two sitting on the floor, and one hoodlum tightly clenching his fists into tight balls on his lap in the nearest chair.

_Perfect, now he really looks like one. He looks like he’s gonna punch a person._

            With that in mind Jean steeled himself, he was going to be quick, in and out and back in time for a snack and some dinner. Maybe he’ll actually do his homework tonight and be able to meet up with real friends the next day. The odds were still very unlikely.

            “Hey,” Jean called in a dull tone with a quick raise of an eyebrow. He closed the distance between both points in the hospital in four steps. “You have my phone?”

            Eren’s eyes were open but he didn’t seem to be looking at anything. His bright eyes were blank and fireless, no heat of his personality radiating from them. His eyebrows seemed to be drawn with a pencil and be forever furrowed.

            “Hey?” Jean unintentionally asked, he threw in a glare to counteract the weirdness of his tone though that did nothing. It was still a very weird sound that came from his throat and he couldn’t take back the greeting he said in a questioning tone as if he was actually worried. This was a strange situation.

            The male before him grunted and blinked before he turned his head to look at Jean. “Sorry, what?” _So lifeless. Damn. What the hell happened in a few hours to make him so blank?_

            Jean cut to the chase and reached out his hand and curled his fingers a few times, beckoning. “My phone?” He emphasized ‘phone’ louder and with underlying aggression.

            Eren’s eyebrows pulled off of eating the rest of his face a bit and his fists opened up so he could fish the Nokia out of his sweatshirt pocket. This time he wore a dark grey and black sweatshirt with nothing on it but a cartoony tree, loose dark jeans, a random pair of sneakers and was beanieless this time. Brunet hair was flat on top but the ends of his hair flared and stuck out oddly, like he was sleeping while pulling out his hair. His musician hands were red from so much clenching, his bones stuck out from his skin.

            He slipped the phone into Jean’s hand and looked at him with a much softer expression from his initial one. Jean wasn’t sure what to make of it and he felt like Eren wanted to say something but Jean just wanted to get out of there and not give him the chance to say whatever he might say.

            “Thanks,” Jean said monotonously while give the phone an appreciative shake at Eren. “Uh, see you.”

            “Jean,” Eren said as soon as Jean lifted his foot to leave. Bringing his foot back down to earth, Jean waited and stared down at the brunet whose mouth opened and closed like a goldfish. He looked like he was either having a hard time finding words to say or deciding if he should say whatever was on his mind at all. “I just wanted to say,” he stopped again this time shutting his eyes. He looked like he was aching and it sort of made Jean feel…

            It was a weird something.

            Jean wasn’t sure if he should welcome this feeling or not because it was like a fluttering insect. If it was a good feeling he’d call ‘em butterflies, but if it wasn’t they’d be moths in his stomach. Both ideas were disgusting. But butterflies sound prettier so he accepted the unusual something.

            “Eren, what are you doing in the hospital in the first place?” Jean decided to ask since Eren was taking a century to speak.

            Eren’s bright eyes flashed up at Jean and his mouth moved faster than it had previously. “I told you my mom’s sick.” Jean gave him a sarcastic glare and they both rolled their eyes. _That’s more like it. Show me your fucking douche-ass eye rolling._ “Well, I didn’t know that while you guys were at the house she tried to get her medication without being seen to not disturb us and she hurt herself.” He paused to look down one of the hallways that looked nearly identical minus the slightly different equipment being rolled down the hall to a room. “She tripped on her way back to her room and basically crushed her bad knee and twisted her ankle. The impact caused something to happen somehow to make her extremely sick, more than she was already, and unable to digest anything including her medication without making her vomit.”

            “Oh,” Jean murmured, shocked at the tale. _Dammit. Please go back to being an ass. I don’t want to feel bad or anything._ “So she’s getting checked up and stuff?”

            He nodded his expression now just blank and pitiful. Seeing Eren like he was threw Jean off his mojo and he felt like he was entitled to do something. He wasn’t being sassy, he wasn’t just shooing Jean away after returning his phone, he didn’t even make a fuss about it. Why wasn’t he matching Jean’s image of him? This wasn’t the Eren he knew. Wait, what _did_ he know? Jean hardly knew this guy and was disappointed when he wasn’t matching his vision of a douchebag drummer boy from Shinganshina. _Why?_ Jean frowned and made a disgusted face; he hated his confusion and wanted to just leave to forget all about this situation. His hands caught the back of his hair, his undercut no longer nicely shaven as it had grown more than an inch due to his laziness.

            “Well, I’ll let you go now, sorry for wasting your time.”

            “No,” Jean denied. “Well, I mean,” _what was he saying?_ “I wasn’t doing anything at home anyway. It’s not like I’m Coconut-head who does his homework before going out, and I don’t party all weekend like Hitch.”

“Hitch?”

            “She’s this junior who just transferred into Trost from some fancy place ‘n she already made a name for herself as the party animal or somethin’.” Eren still had this confused look and Jean sighed and tried to describe her best he could. He dropped his hand from his hair and began using hand gestures as he spoke. “She’s kinda bold and shameless, she has ashy hair, kinda wavy and cuts at ‘bout here,” Jean made cutting motions at his neck. He checked the time on his phone and saw a missed call and two texts but pocketed the phone rather than being rude and checking it. “She’s actually smart though; she’s in a couple AP classes and does well in them.”

            “Oh!” Eren said with a little more life lighting his face. “She’s in uh, in… AP Bio with me I think.”

            “Yeah, she’s Marco’s desk mate I think. He tells me all these weird stories of her getting caught or the lack of in some cases, of her doing some questionable things.”

_We’re talking. We’re holding a conversation. A decent conversation with no venom in our words. What is this? Fuck fuck fuckin’ butts. Someone shoot me, this guy has only ever gotten on my nerves what is this?!_

            “She once put Ms. Zoe’s favorite pair of goggles in the fish tank with lipstick writing on the lenses saying ‘suck it’ on them. She was dared to apparently.”

            Jean let out a few ‘haha’s’ that were fairly genuine and took a much more casual stance next to the sitting male.

            “She introduced herself as ‘Hitch Delicious’ once.”

            “What kind of fucking name is that?”

            Eren shrugged and raised one eyebrow. He cracked a slit in his lips to show a few teeth in a sheepish smile. “Better than my German last name that people mock for as ‘Jagger’. It’s not hard to say it right after I’ve corrected it more than twenty times in one week. It’s fucking ‘Yay-ger’. I give up on all spellings, just get the sound right dammit.”

            “Try Jean mother-fucking Kirschstein.”

            “Genre. Like that right? Gen- Jean. Kirsh? ‘Tein’ or ‘stein’? _Kershstine?_ ”

            “You got it. Now try to spell it.”

            “G-H-A-H-N, K-E-R-S-H-S-T-I-N-E?”

_My god._

            “Holy fuck, dude, I’ve never heard that choice of arrangement before, ha ha, shit that was pretty bad.”

            “Which one? The ‘Jean’ or the ‘Kirschstein’?”

            “Both. Ehh, well…” Jean cocked his head to one side. “More of the ‘Jean.’ Didn’t you see my name when I messaged you on Facebook?”

            “It’s not like I was paying attention to that. C’mon, who actually does that?”

            “Uh, a lot of people whose names just flew off my list of names who do that sort of stuff.”

            “Alright then, ‘Jean’, spell my name,” Eren challenged as he leaned forward in his chair.

            “I saw the spelling on Facebook, hold on… E-R…E-N?” Jean paused for confirmation and was greeted with a satisfied nod. “Uh… J… Special A thing” Jean wiggled his fingers in the air at that and made a cringing face. “Ger. G-E-R.”

            “Special A thing? Aw c’mon!”

            “Shut the fuck up ‘Yay-ger’ or I will throw down some sick French tongue twisters.”

            It was a moment later after the name conversation that Jean found himself leaning over, resting his hand on the back of Eren’s chair as they talked casually, as if they were friends; chatting about school and stories from their classes that have yet to fully circulate among the students and their extended friends of other schools.

            If anyone happened to throw a passing glance in their direction they would think of how natural the two teens looked and how friendly they were. Time passed and it was past two-thirty when Jean had noticed the time on Eren’s phone when he flashed it on for the time for the sixth time. Jean made a tightlipped expression when he wasn’t looking; disliking the fact his background picture for his lock screen was of him, his Asian beauty, and the coconut-head. Specifically the fact that Mikasa was the center person and took up the most space in the picture bothered him. _How nice of you to flaunt your relationship like that on your phone, damn._

            “What’s wrong?” he could hear Eren ponder with slight worry. His face had brightened and he didn’t look so worried about his mother anymore.

_What’s wrong? You, that’s what._

            Jean just stood up from his leaning position and glowered. He clicked his tongue and gave Eren a shrug, not even giving him the respect by looking at him. “Eh.”

            Eren’s eyebrow raised at Jean’s sudden change in character, the subtle signs of Eren’s alertness showed through his confused expression. He knew there was something up that caused Jean to act a bit bitter; they were having a nice discussion about the recent school hackings and how icons were changed with scandalous chibi characters. Eren didn’t want to have to bare his teeth again in case Jean would start acting bratty.

            “Well, alright,” Eren finally stated calmly. He let out a slow exhale in place of what Jean was a sigh.

_How is he so calm, wasn’t he just a pitiful mess a while ago about his mom’s health?!_

            “Right.”

            “Right.”

            “Don’t mock me.”

            “I didn’t- what am I supposed to respond with when all you keep saying is one word sentences?”

            “Fuck if I know.”

            The brunet sighed and scratched his temple. He was silent for an immeasurable minute that felt longer than sixty seconds.

            Jean flashed his phone out and saw the icons telling him he missed a few calls and texts. “Well, I gotta go, my ma’s gonna bitch at me for ignoring her calls. She’s probably pissed at something stupid as fuck if she called me when she knew I’d be out. Woman won’t leave me alone even if I was takin’ a shit.”

            Eren was still silent but he glared right back at Jean who still had a bitter expression. “You shouldn’t talk about your mom like that.”

            “You wanna be my fuckin’ father now?”

            “I didn’t mean anything by it! Especially not that.”

            Jean’s let out a long exhale and scrunched his nose. “See ya, Jaeger. Oh… ‘ _Jagger_.’” Jean didn’t wait for Eren to return the farewell; he was out of the hospital before Eren could comprehend what had just happened.

            Eren bit his lip tightly between his teeth on the side then pinched the bridge of his nose.

            “God dammit…”

* * *

 

            There had been seven hours between the hospital meet up and Jean’s current location at that point in time on the couch watching old cartoons. The TV box’s digital clock read nine something and that was enough for Jean. He had touched his homework and answered a few questions, threw it back in his backpack, and gorged on food until he got a call from Marco about meeting up the next day at the Corner Cafe with Mina. The teen had agreed of course, it was just a simple lunch friend date situation where the actual people who planned the date would then bring one friend to back them up. Marco was too much of a wimp to go alone. Marco’d do the same if Jean had ever landed a date with his love interest.

            Jean had used every excuse to not touch or even look at his phone with the exception of answering Marco’s seventh call (he hadn’t called him back after he had retrieved the phone from Eren). He wanted to wipe of all evidence that Eren had touched his phone but he couldn’t bring himself to touch it himself. It just sat in the charger next to the couch where he wouldn’t see it.

            “Jean,” his mother called from behind the couch. “Can you massage me tonight?” Her voice was quiet and sweet. Jean rolled his eyes and flung himself over the other backside of the couch and followed his mother up the stairs. Part way up she stopped her low humming to ask, “Could you bring your phone? I like the music you have on it.”

            He didn’t object. He felt a heavy weight on him that made him unwilling to make any remarks or find an excuse to not go get it. He didn’t want to go get it and he didn’t want to massage his mom. He just wanted to watch TV and wait until sleep took him and he’d get ready in the morning to meet up with Marco.

            But the same phone he had been avoiding the entire day would soon be in his hands, playing some shit music he accidentally downloaded and never got around to deleting.

            He had basically ripped the charger out of the phone socket and let it fall to the carpet and turned it on to see if he had any missed calls or messages. He quickly checked his notifications and such before he began playing the music his mom liked as he entered her bedroom.

            She was on her stomach and already half asleep when her son perched himself on one side of her bare calves to begin lightly pounding a rhythm into her muscles. He soon found a beat as he karate chopped the flesh with his hands, definitely not matching the beat of the music, but a familiar beat that he had heard only yesterday.

_Tatata ta ta tatata ta… ba dump… ba da tat tatata…_

_Wait. No it was more like… Tatata tata tatata ta bump… ba bump… Is that right?_

Jean’s hands knew the rhythm, but his mind couldn’t comprehend it. He could easily beat it out into his mom’s leg but not say it in his head like he usually could with music.

_Ta tatata ta ta tatata ta? Ta ba ba tata ta batata? Ba bump? Ba dump? Ratatata ta ta ratatata ta ba ba ba dummm…_

_That’s not right._

            Jean opened his eyes he hadn’t realized he had shut and looked down at his phone that was lit up with a text notification. The music quietly continued as he picked up his Nokia and entered his code to read the text. He had totally forgotten he was trying to remember the rhythm of the beats from the yesterday. Was it only just yesterday?

            “This… Bastard…” Jean grumbled without a shred of enmity. The text was from an unfamiliar contact but he could read, the sender had made themselves known with a simple introduction. The introduction itself was one separate text, and slowly, one by one more messages came in within a few seconds to minutes apart from each other.

           

            _Jean this is Eren_

_sorry for earlier today_

_if i did something to upset u_

_i didnt mean anything by it_

_ & the whole mocking thing _

_too_

_im not gona make exuses_

_for that_

_ok sorry ill just keep this_

_short if uever feel like_

_talking again u have my #_

_just phone me_

_btw i got ur # from Marco_

 

            “Marco…” Jean mouthed with a frown on his face. He had gotten off of his mom’s bed as she was asleep already, and turned off the light. He made a quick stop at the restroom before he went back to his own room and flopped backward onto the bed, phone dangerously close to his eyes.

            The ghost of Marco’s voice warning him that he’ll ruin his eyes that way sounded in his head and he brought the bright screen away from his eyes just a bit.

            Jean wondered why it took so long to message back. Did he hate typing? Did he have a thing against Jean and was forcing himself to do the ‘right’ thing by apologizing for something totally not his fault (though Jean won’t admit that). Maybe he was frustrated and was thinking his words through? Jean didn’t have a fucking clue but the pauses between texts made Jean feel… off? He felt as if he needed to know why he was acting the way he was. _Ah fuck what if he’s having sex and just remembered to send me a text and is doing it now cause he thinks he’ll fucking forget to do it later… Ugh disgusting!_

            Jean removed the thought from his mind. He hadn’t done anything else except stare at the message that the ‘bastard’ had sent him. Jean’s tongue rubbed the back of his teeth as he contemplated his options. He _could_ respond to the texts, or he _could_ ignore them, _or_ he _could_ give this number a call.

            No.

            He was not going to text back or ‘ _phone him’_ he was going to sleep a long, deserved sleep that he couldn’t get yesterday because of fucking shit-beanie. Yeah, no, someone who caused him to feel that shitty on a weekend did not deserve a quick response. Maybe not even a response at all.

            He clicked the power button and slid his phone a safe distance away on the bed from his sleeping zone. He smirked to himself and shut his eyes; glad he hadn’t turned the light on when he entered his room earlier. That fucker wasn’t going to get the satisfaction of getting a response out of this handsome teen. He will have to wait in anxiety for a reply that may never come.

            _That’s what you get for pissing me off, Jagger._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...Did you like?  
>  No? Yes?  
> Comment and tell me so I can make this enjoyable to read and you know, better my sucky writing capabilities cause I suck with words and the English language as a whole.
> 
> I hope to do more with character interactions but this is a slow build fic so be patient for anything dramatic to actually happen.


	5. The Corner Cafe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No more Eren for now. Oh wait. But there is that...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am sorry this is so laaaate... I will try to go back to monthly updates but no promises as of right now.
> 
> Sorry this chapter is kinda out of nowhere and ends a tad awkwardly but I am trying to get somewhere with this I promise. I actually have to keep rereading what I already wrote to make sure I don't mess up the timeline or anything.

            Saturday did not feel like Saturday. It felt like… Jean wasn’t sure what but it was definitely not Saturday. He had woken up like it was Monday and slept as if it had just been Sunday. But he was sure that he had spent most of the day on Thursday in Shinganshina after school ended, and then Friday revolved around Eren… Damn. It really was Saturday.

            He hadn’t slept well that night either; it was like the night at that Bastard’s place all over again. Jean groaned at his phone that read 11 am and rolled off his bed. He was going to be late if he didn’t pick up his turtle pace, but he could hardly comprehend what he was even doing. The floor felt nice, so he stayed there for another ten minutes that felt like only two.

            He heard the doorbell and was sure that it was Marco; probably anxiously standing on the welcome mat dressed a bit more fanciful than usual.

            Jean looked at his hair in the bathroom mirror as he scrubbed his teeth with hardly enough toothpaste. The blond of his hair stuck out wildly even when he tried to brush it down. _Looks like a hat day for me. Or I could style this hair…_

He spat into the sink and rinsed his mouth with water. Jean’s eyes wandered the bathroom and he decided he should at least do a decent face washing with his nearly gone acne soap. Jean had changed a lot more quickly than he had used the bathroom and wore decent clothes that smelled, well, decent. He should at least look nice with Marco to some extent.

            Jean ran his deodorant over his armpits before he slipped into a plain white T-shirt and buttoned his red and black flannel up three buttons. Okay, four, three showed the awkward tiny hole in his shirt. He basically jumped into his dark wash jeans and belted them loosely as he rushed to get out of his room. Marco had been let in by his mom and was already making his way up to his bedroom.

            “Oh, thank you Ms. Kirschstein, but I won’t be long, just going to get Jean.” Jean could barely hear Marco say as he walked over to the stairwell.

            “A’right hon, you’re welcome to take some for the road.” His mother’s voice faded away and he could hear Marco’s toe tapping instead.

            “I’m coming, I’m coming!” Jean shouted so Marco could hear.

            “I knew you would wake up late so I came early!” Marco shouted back.

            Jean swiped his phone off his bed and shoved it, along with his wallet into their usual pockets. He thumped down the stairs and stopped at the bottom with a flick of his wrists and a “ta-da!”

            Marco shook his head while smiling at his friend. “Hat?” Jean uh-ed and avoided his gaze and ran back up the stairs to his bedroom and snatched a beanie from his desk. He reappeared shortly after, chuckling sheepishly. “C’mon.”

            “Leaving,” Jean shouted to his mother who was sitting in the living room.

            “Uh huh, alright sweetie. You know when to be back.”

            “Yeah mom, I know.”

            Marco snickered as he opened the front door and watched Jean do his ‘leaving the house’ rituals. Jean turned to the mirror and opened his lips to show his teeth as he licked the fronts of them before throwing his faux leather jacket, which had magically appeared in his hands, over his arm.

            The two of them walked down to the sidewalk and decided it best to enjoy the weather and walk to the cafe. They were a bit early anyway, might as well waste some time getting there.

            “You look dead today. How are you, Jean?” Marco asked quite formally with his usual worried tone.

            “Tired-af. I can’t even remember falling asleep.” Jean stretched his shoulders as they turned down another street that was just as scarcely populated with life as the last. “Yeah, I dunno why but I just couldn’t sleep well.”

            “Must have been some fitful sleeping with the bedhead you woke up with.”

            Jean groaned instead of responding properly and turned his head up toward the sky. It was littered with white clouds and everything was tinted with a golden glow of morning. It wasn’t as cold as other days which was nice.

            Marco may have kept talking or shut up altogether, Jean didn’t know. He was so focused on the passing clouds and birds overhead that he couldn’t hear anything.  It reminded him of the morning he woke up in that Bastard’s house and-

            Jean was pulled abruptly to one side as he was just getting into some deep thinking.

            “Jean!”

            The car zoomed by just nearly grazing Jean’s side. His heart had pounded faster for a minute or so as he realized what had happened. There was the initial shock and then confusion. He looked over at the tall male quizzically who had been glaring down the road at the driver who had rounded a corner before turning to Jean. Jean just received a worried yet somewhat pissed expression.

            “Don’t say it,” Marco shushed, his eyebrows furrowed. “You nearly got hit by a speeding car,” he paused to grumble. It seemed like he needed to collect himself for a moment before he continued to grill him down. Marco” You weren’t on the sidewalk, and you didn’t even move when the car came in view! You can’t expect me to believe you were not thinking of something, so, what is it?!”

            Jean wasn’t expecting so much fierceness from his simple mistake, a mistake that could leave him potentially hospitalized, but a simple mistake nonetheless.

            The male shut his eyes, scratching his undercut all the while before he stopped once he reopened his eyes to see the world once again. The environment remained the same, the clouds, the sidewalk, and the sky. Street, Marco, birds, sun. It was all the same except Marco’s expression had softened yet his eyes stared hard at him.

            “Marco, we’re gonna be late,” Jean lied, hoping Marco would just let him be for a while.

            He huffed and blew his dark bangs from his eyes and spun on his heel quite dramatically. “Fine, you will tell me later though, I’ll take this I.O.U.”

            Marco began walking again, still obviously not sold on being late, he had come early to Jean’s to avoid this situation. The freckled boy took quicker, longer strides down the street. Marco’s face was obviously out of Jean’s view but he imagined he was childishly pouting to make up for the serious-cloud that had fell upon them a few seconds ago. Jean just followed obediently behind walking heel-to-toe, heel-to-toe. Finding all ways to think of what ‘ _normal_ ’ was to him.

            It definitely was not normal to get lost in thought so quickly at just the thought of the idiot in Shinganshina. It was normal, however, to semi-ignore Marco as he filled in the silent space between them when Jean just wasn’t feeling it that day. It was normal for Marco to do such kind gestures and it was only natural for Jean to respond in such a way. Marco wasn’t offended in the slightest, their friendship left space for this sort of thing.

            It was normal to stare at clouds as they rolled by... But it wasn’t normal to automatically relate morning clouds to the Friday morning in Shinganshina, or the odd breakfast situation with his high school crush staying in the same house as, not only him for a few short hours, but as well as the guy he considered his enemy at the time. Enemy right now. Enemy. Oh whatever.

            It also wasn’t normal to walk down the streets of Trost wondering why his actions were so childish either.

            Over thinking this wasn’t normal.

            Jean grit his teeth trying to pull his mind out of such confusing thoughts as he turned a corner Marco had disappeared behind. He had wrapped his hands in his arms and kept his body taut as he finished walking the last block or two to the Corner Cafe.

            From a distance the cafe looked deserted and closed when actually it had been open for about three hours already. The chalkboard sign was all decorated with warm colors and sat on the sidewalk by the doorway, the blinds were all flipped open but still down to let natural light in, and the smell of pastries and tea and coffee were wafting out of the door whenever someone had opened it.

            Marco had waited at the entrance, not a single word after the incident with the car had even been registered in Jean’s ears as words. He held the door open and allowed Jean to go in before himself. Jean stood randomly in the center of the cafe, still stiff with his arms wrapped around himself before he followed Marco to a checkered table in between the cafe’s counter, and the booths on the left side of the cafe by the register. It was raised a bit by a step and just barely overlooked the decently sized cafe.

            The cafe itself was one of those hybrids where you could not only order like a regular restaurant, but you could do the Starbucks style fast take-away for those in a rush. They had a display case for the quick stuff that can be easily shoved in a bag in the area Jean liked to call the grab-n-go section. The cafe used to be a tiny pub but was converted and even expanded so now the edges of the cafe had little raised platforms for some of the tables and booths. There was a piano pushed up against the far wall next to the grab-n-go section that was sometimes being played by anyone who can play a tune or any of their staff for the evening poetry readings.

            Jean sat with a slouch while Marco leaned over the table, arms taking up half the space the table had to offer, and had a gleam in his eyes. Jean tightened his lips in a subtle duck face with an inquiring eyebrow raising up. Jean didn’t have to say what he was going to ask, Marco was going to answer it anyway.

            “See, not late, she isn’t even here yet…” Marco sighed, relieved. And then the relief disappeared and he was pouting. “Yes, I’m still mad. I can’t believe you would lie to me, no wait, I _can_ believe it. Jean, you’re such a prick sometimes.”

            Jean gave him a half-hearted, sheepish smile with a shrug and scanned the cafe quickly. He was facing the entrance, hardly allowing him to see most of the cafe; he had to twist all the way around to just see the counter.

 _A thirty year-old in the corner-booth on his cellphone with some extremely black coffee, a mother and her daughter playing cards, also in a booth, and the one of two actual Corner Cafe staff, I wonder who is working today._ Only one was actually present to the public while the other sat in the back.

            Jean turned back around and resumed slouching, this time resting his hands in his pockets so he looked less tense. Marco looked tense, it was entertaining to Jean, because he would be like this now but when the girls show up he will be as normal and as casual as ever and no one would be able to tell that he was running in circles in his brain, frantic about this date plus friends situation.

            The one staff member that Jean could see came over and asked for their orders but they told her they would wait a moment as they were waiting for two more people. It was the girl from school who sat behind him in one of his classes, though he couldn’t remember which. She was that impacting on his life.

            Jean was about to fall asleep listening to Marco talk on and on about his unfinished homework he couldn’t focus on last night when the door chimed at the entry of two girls about their age. They were both on the short side, one with cute pigtails, and a cheery disposition, and the other with a cold, poker face that could kill.

            Marco waved them over and greeted them both with a bright smile. Jean followed up with a low, ‘Yo,’ and continued to sit in silence.

            Mina had taken her seat next to Marco, opposite the girl she brought with her, Annie. Jean understood why Mina was a little bit dressier than usual; her pigtails tied with decorative hair-ties, a little bit of light makeup from what Jean could tell in the natural lighting and a dress a bit too short to be warm enough for this season. Which explains her dark brown trench coat that she hung on the coat stand. But Annie? Annie was also a bit dressier too. Her hair wasn’t so messily tied back in a bun like it usually was, but it was French braided down her shoulder, showing off her face a bit more. He had never noticed how big her eyes actually were, or how she could actually pull off looking good in clothes other than a sweatshirt and jeans. Her skin looked so fair and Jean had never noticed _that_ before, he hardly noticed her at all because he always tried avoiding her.

            Jean had officially labeled this week peculiar beyond comprehension of any sort.

            “Did we make you guys wait long?” Mina inquired as she rested her hands on the table. Annie had remained quite silent minus her quiet one-word greeting.

            “No no, not at all!” Marco of course replied. “We had only been sitting down a few minutes until you guys came.”

            Noticing the two new customers, the girl sitting by the counter put down her phone. She made her way to their table with pen and pad in hand. “May I take your orders now?” she politely asked, standing over Jean’s shoulder.

            “Ah, uhm, I’ll just have a-” Jean blanked out, he blinked a few times and made faces at the tiny folded menu in his hands. “Marco?”

            Marco raised his eyebrows in surprise and fumbled on his words a bit, he peeled his eyes away from Mina and looked down at his own menu. His deep eyes flashed up at Jean and got the idea that Jean had absolutely no idea what he was going to order.

            He ordered for him instead, Marco was good like that. Jean wasn’t even sure what Marco got him but he was going to put up with it while he sat and stared down at the table. Annie ordered something right from the front and Mina got what she considered her regular, Jean assumed she came here often because that was all she had to tell the waitress.

            As soon as she left with the orders she disappeared into the kitchen only to reappear moments later to begin preparing their drinks.

            Jean sighed, bringing Annie’s attention onto him.

            “What’s up?” She murmured in that lifeless voice of her’s. She had turned in her seat a little to face Jean, slouching in her seat.

            Jean brought his eyes up to look at her, only to give the look of “what the fuck do you want?” Annie just rolled her eyes and turned back around to listen to Marco and Mina’s animated conversation, adding in a cent or two of her thoughts here and there.

            “... If I do say so myself. I just can’t believe that they allow Ms. Zoe to get away with all of those experiments.”

            “Right?”

            “I heard she got away with setting off the fire alarms with her electro… Something or other- either way she set it off using some electric signals or something.”

            It wasn’t long before the subject of Ms. Zoe led to the subject of other teachers, then homework, and then somehow parents.

            It all seemed like a dream to Jean, being there, sitting with Marco and two of his classmates who were not quite so irritable. It was so odd to him, the sun shone brightly through the windows, he was around people he could stand and probably have a fun time being around if he participated. The food that was just placed before him looked good and steamed with flavor. The drowsiness from this morning was beginning to wear off and he could actually make out what was going around him now.

            Such as the beautiful black haired beauty placing a plate of croissants in the middle of the table.

            “I didn’t know you worked here, Mikasa,” Marco beamed.

            Mikasa returned his smile with a softer version. “Yes, I just started two weeks ago, but I have just been playing fill in until now. Now I work the short hours after practice until closing.”

            Her voice was sweet to Jean’s ears and he could feel himself shiver, as if all of his nerves vibrated upon command to the sound of her voice. She was so close, just behind his chair. Jean wanted to turn around but he could feel his face fill with blood and he could feel his face stretch into a ridiculous, nervous smile.

            But he steeled himself and turned around just as she placed Jean’s order in front of him (a fancy looking sandwich cut open and split in half with fries in the middle), before she pulled back and turned to the customer calling her.

            By name.

            “Enjoy, I’ll check with you again later” she smiled but it was obvious her tone was hiding something. And then she was gone, gliding from their table to the booth across the cafe with the man sitting at it.

            Jean didn’t even get to say hello, he was so lost in his thoughts that he didn’t notice her presence at their table. She had placed at three plates and four drinks down before Jean had realized it was her. He sighed once more and picked up one of his sandwich halves and lifted it to his lips. He bit into the crunchy surface of the sandwich with an expression similar to waking up from a dream. He was half-heartedly listening to the new topic of finding jobs after school when he heard the slam of a hand on a table.

            The cafe went silent for a moment as everyone looked over at the table with Mikasa and the man. Her hand quickly left the table and Mikasa apologized to the customers for the disturbance and flashed a smile. Both of them immediately relaxed their bodies to show that nothing was wrong and everyone ignored it and went back to whatever they were doing. But Jean didn’t stop eyeing them from the corner with his peripherals. The man had been on the phone up until just before calling Mikasa over, and now his face was lined and grim.

            Mikasa’s hands gripped the serving tray tightly at her side and even from across the room Jean could see her knuckles whiten like a sheet. If things didn’t seem so intense, Jean would take this chance to admire her in her uniform.

            The man’s lips moved quickly as he spoke, hardly ever taking a pause for breath. Jean tried to catch bits and pieces of the words he was saying his low tone but with no luck. He spoke too quickly and he could have sworn he at least caught the words ‘want him dead’ or ‘buns in bed’ and he wasn’t sure what to think of either of them. Jean tried leaning back in his chair just enough to get within earshot, but took his eyes off of them. Marco gave him a confused look and he just made a face back. He took a few bites when he felt it was necessary so he at least seemed normal. As normal as could be at least.

_Damn, they’re good at whispering. I can’t hear shit… Well I guess that **is** the point now isn’t it?_

            He realized after a few minutes that they had stopped talking and all he heard from the other side of the room was the shuffle of cards and feet. Jean took a quick glance back before he nearly fell out of the chair, almost dragging Annie with him. Annie gave him a snarl and a ‘what the fuck?!’  His skin paled and his eyes widened and he was sure his heart was just about to burst. He gripped at the fabric of his shirt right over his heart and sucked in a quick breath before holding it.

            This guy was short. _Really_ short!

            But his height had no nullifying effect on how speechless Jean was. He was utterly terrified, not once in Jean’s short teenager life had he ever felt such a presence as this man. If fear was a drug his eyes alone gave Jean an overdose.

            Jean’s mouth opened and closed much similar to the goldfish at the dentist’s office as he could not formulate a cohesive thought. No one had said anything yet; his friends were just as speechless as he was. His eyes were sharp daggers but the circles under his eyes said sleep deprived. It could be seen that he had youthful features that were hardened by his muscle tone and lack of fat which only put Jean’s tail between his legs. He could probably chuck him out of the door if he wanted to.

            “Uh-” was all Jean could muster the courage to say, and even then it was practically less than a whisper. His eyes were fixed on the other’s icy blue ones; he hadn’t even realized Mikasa was standing right behind him.

            “Do you enjoy eavesdropping?” the man finally inquired. There was no emotion or undertone in his words. His voice was much deeper than expected, yet not as deep as Jean imagined after being scared shitless.

            Jean let out an airy ‘no,’ before he gulped. The male scratched his tongue with his teeth and blinked a few times. This wasn’t how Jean acted! This wasn’t him! He took in a few deep breaths without breaking eye contact and licked his lips. His heart began to even out but it was still beating quite fast and he was able regain just a little bit of his composure.

            The man before him kept his stone like expression and just kept staring back. Jean readjusted in his seat to show that was no longer surprised by this man and showed off his broad shoulders. He kept his eyes on him in the silent showdown going on between the both of them. After only moments of silence, the man’s eyebrow twitched as if almost acknowledging the quick recovery.

            “No, I do not,” Jean reiterated.

            Mikasa made a sound similar to a grunt and Jean finally broke away first, turning back toward his food. The man stood behind his chair, still, and he could feel the eyes on the back of his head and it sent shivers through his bones.

            Jean gulped and took in slow inhales and exhales through his nose before someone said anything again.

            “Leave him alone, Levi,” Mikasa grumbled with obvious irritation, her customer service voice long thrown out the window. “Just go back to work already.”

            The man named Levi just let out a short, quick exhale through his nose as if scoffing. “Excuse me,” he said through tight lips. He nodded to the four of them, letting his eyes linger on Jean a bit longer before pushing past Mikasa and out the door, the bell ringing softly behind him.

            Mikasa crossed her arms over her torso and blew her bangs out of her face. “Ugh, that man really- Ooh!” Jean’s eyes widened a bit at Mikasa’s outburst, it seemed a bit out of the norm for her to be totally bothered by someone like that. Jean bit his lip to hide his obvious smile. _How cute._ But that wasn’t what he should have been thinking right then.

            “Do you know that guy?” Annie asked, beating everyone else to the punch. She took a bite of her croissant, watching the Asian carefully.

            Jean glanced over before taking a fry from the pile on his plate and occupied his mouth with it. Mikasa sighed and relaxed her shoulders and went back into her calm, cool, and collected persona.

            “Yes, he’s just a guy I know,” she waved her hand dismissively. “He works for the police department. You may have seen him on the local news sometimes. He tends to be the one they interview first because he shows up first.”

            Marco was the first to respond this time, gulping down the mouthful of partially chewed food before speaking. “I remember his face now! He was the one who responded first to the shooting that happened on the bus coming from Shinganshina to Trost. Our joint STEM seminar was postponed until the next week. It was last year, I remember.”

            Mina joined in, “Ohhh… A kid was shot then, right?”

            Mikasa’s eyes went to the floor and she quickly muttered, “Yes. He was shot in the leg.” She sighed one last time before pulling a smile back onto her face. “Are you guys still good, want another cappuccino?” She started reaching for the cup and saucer when Mina waved her away.

            “A water will be fine, thank you.”

            Mikasa nodded and disappeared behind the counter and returned shortly with her glass of water. After everyone had settled back into eating Mikasa left to attend to the kitchen where she often was when the hours were slow.

            They all had finished their food by the time all the customers had rotated out twice that day. Nothing much happened after their meeting with Levi, customers came and went and the sun kept on shining. The people seemed rather normal and the day went on as any other Saturday. Yet Jean found himself oddly disturbed even then when they were walking out of the door and heading toward one of the nearby parks.

The day was still just as beautiful as Jean remembered and all was peaceful. The birds would fly overhead and the trees would rustle in the disappearing breeze.

            But his mind kept on wandering.

            His mind went back to the look Mikasa had given him before he left the cafe. It said a lot of things but Jean only picked up on two of them.

            _Don’t ask, don’t get involved._

            But Jean was sure that even if he listened to her, he would still end up involved. He always did.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Stuff happened! Yaaaay~ Levi appeared! Annie appeared! MINA APPEARED! People! Stuff! Ahghhghghg...
> 
> I promise something...More... With upcoming chapters, just not yet. It may still be slow from here on but I will try to put more quality into this fic.
> 
> Comments and suggestions and predictions always welcome!


	6. [They] Got Me Insane

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Half a week later things still have yet to really improve.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Firstly I’d like to apologize as this had been done for over 2 weeks now just sitting there… I was too afraid and or lazy to post it probably.) This ended weirdly, I spent forever agonizing over where I should end this chapter and where the next should start and in the end it was nowhere I had expected it to be, like, wow. This is a twist for me. But because of this I guess the next chapter may be shorter but end where I initially planned with this one, and have a cliffhanger! And a normal chapter after that! Yay! But this also meant that I spent a lot longer putting up this chapter than I [didn’t] promised. 
> 
> And yes the title of this chapter is a song lyric with one word change to hint at who has who ‘insane’. (Please forgive my horrible grammar checking and stuff)
> 
> Okay enough of me, enjoy~

            He had fallen asleep in class again. This time he was abruptly awoken by his teacher with a meter stick, he had always kept it at the side of his desk, and slammed it hard next to Jean’s head. That brought out a few muffled giggles from his classmates. His eyes were wide as he stared at the piece of wood that barely missed his nose. The teen sat up straight and avoided the teacher’s glare.

            Jean was sure he could hear Marco sigh from the other side of the room as the teacher turned around once again to explain what he had just wrote on the board.

            It may already be Wednesday in the real world but to Jean it felt like Monday all over again, tired and nearly dead. Ever since he had gone to that idiot Jaeger kid’s house he hadn’t had a decent amount of sleep even if he wanted to. He just couldn’t. Meeting the guy, learning about the guy, having to meet up with him, and then the encounter with the short man and Mikasa’s unspoken words of advice… Everything just continued to weigh on his mind heavily. If he were to compare the situation to music, he felt that every event from Friday up until Saturday was one heavy gong strike, and every moment after that he was reminded of said events were low trills on a grand piano.

            It wasn’t like he wanted to even think about him, hate him even, it just came naturally it seemed. Everything about the guy seemed wrong, seemed off, like there was two of him and Jean sees the one but his brain thinks it’s the other and responds with hostility.

            He only came to this realization Monday night when it was already light out and he allowed himself to delve into his true thoughts. When he got up to start his day he thought the idea was just crazy.

            Jean just seemed to see the dude in everything and it made him more pissed that _he_ was all he thought about lately. He’d rather get caught thinking dirty thoughts than trying to figure out a guy he had no business dealing with.

            _Oh, that kid’s hair is a nice shade of brown, but it reminds me of…_

            **Nope.**

_Her shoes look like the ones I saw in the store. They’re the same ones I saw at his house t-_

**Shut up brain.**

_His music is too fucking loud, I can’t think, it sounds like something that idiot Ere-_

**Don’t you start.**

_Was that Armin? Weird, I don’t see Jae-_

**God dammit!**

            The bell finally rang and Jean could feel his body sigh along with him. _Thank goodness._ He didn’t think he could have suffered through any more of his brain’s wandering thoughts.

            “Just one more period, Jean, you got this,” Marco said, as if reading his thoughts like a book. He stood patiently waiting for his groggy friend to gather his things into his backpack when Mr. Ness waltzed over toward the pair with his arms thrust into his dark slacks.

            “Marco, Jean,” he addressed curtly.

            “Hello, Mr. Ness,” Marco replied with a nod. He tightened his grip on his backpack straps as their teacher took one last step closer, closing the space so much so that they could smell each other’s’ cologne and deodorant.

            “Mind if I chat with Mr. Kirschstein for a second? It won’t be long, promise.”

            Marco just shrugged, having no reason to object and walked out of the classroom, throwing Jean a worried glance and a look in his eyes that said he would wait as long as he could before the bell rang.

            Jean pushed himself out of the seat and threw his bag over his shoulder, the clinking of his zippers and keychains sounding too loud in the empty classroom. The teen blinked slowly and opened his mouth even slower to yawn, but he covered his mouth when he realized he was breathing morning breath all over his teacher.

            Mr. Ness just ignored it it seemed and went straight into his question. “Is there anything you’d like to talk about, Mr. Kirschstein? Or, should I be concerned about anything, you have been slacking off lately in class and seem to not be sleeping much…” Jean just squinted and cocked an eyebrow at his balding teacher. He sighed and crossed his arms over his shirt, wrinkling the fabric of his emerald colored button up. “What I meant was, you can come to me anytime, Jean. Or I can-”

            Jean put up his unoccupied hand and shook his head. “No offence, Mr. Ness, but I don’t need your help. It’s nothing, really, thanks though.” The teacher widened his eyes as if challenging him to say it again. It made Jean gulp. “Really, I just got teen angst or whatever adults like to call it. It’s really nothing, I’ll be back on track soon enough, I’ll even turn in my assignments with little to no errors, just for you.”

            “Whoa whoa whoa,” Mr. Ness exclaimed while throwing his hands up like he was calming down an animal as to not get pounced on. “Alright, alright, you’re just dandy, I get it… That’s all I wanted to say, you may go now, Mr. Kirschstein.” Jean was waved away and he gladly obeyed. The teen didn’t even wait for Mr. Ness to move out of the aisle to give him space to leave, he just squeezed past and practically bolted to his locker.

            The hallway was quieter than normal, some kids were on a weeklong trip for some Home Ec. thing and that was probably why a few faces were missing from his routine this week. That really bothered him. It was bad enough he felt like his life was all bent hellishly out of shape from just one weekend.

            “So what did you guys talk about?” Marco suddenly asked appearing over Jean’s shoulder.

            Before he could respond he practically jumped out of his skin with a tiny ‘fuck’ muttered under his intake of air. He rubbed his neck awkwardly as he turned to face the dark-haired male. “Just about school work, ya know?”

            Marco eyed him suspiciously, leaning down to fill the small distance between their faces. Jean turned his face away slowly before his friend decreed he could stop pestering him already. Jean sighed at regaining his own personal space while opening his locker. He stared into the depths of the factory grey metal and then shut the door to the locker he never locked, too lazy to input the numbers each time.

            “Well, just one more period and we have lunch, let’s go.”

            Jean groaned loudly.

            “Ah c’mon it’s not going to be too bad, they restocked on nachos today and it’s not like you have to see Eren or anything today, you’ll be fine!” Marco joked.

            “Why the fuck do you think I care about that douchebag anyway?”

            “Because I know you well enough by now to know for a fact that you tend to wear belts with your jeans even if they don’t hold up when you think you may run into some pretty girls or more specifically Mikasa. I think it’s because you think it makes you look cooler or more fashionable, but I think if you used the belt properly-”

            Jean’s ears flushed red and he playfully punched Marco’s shoulder. _Damnit, he’s right isn’t he?_ “Ey, ey ey, that’s enough outta you, I get it. It’s because you know me oh so well, huh? Aren’t you just the best friend ever… And, uh, why wouldn’t I see him today?”

            Marco shrugged as if that’s all he knew how to do. “He’s missing the first half of the day for an appointment or something.”

            “And why do you know that?”

            “Armin.”

            “So he’ll be around school later then?”

            “Probably. He couldn’t fix his schedule so that he could leave at lunch rather than staying one more period and then leave to go home.”

            “Sucks to be him then. That kind of schooling seems too complicated to me.”

            “Yeah, he has two periods, no period, lunch, another period… Something like that, I only have him in my first period. But, I hear they are changing the school days so we have A and B days.”

            “What are those?”

            “Well it’s when you have some classes on one day and then the next is another set of classes and it just goes back and forth. We might change it at the semester if things go smoothly.”

            “That sounds fucking stupid.”

            “Well, yeah, but it works out for those who need extra time between classes to finish work and those who have weird schedules like Eren.”

            “No duh, who would’ve guessed?”

            “You’re being a real sass-ass today, huh?”

            Jean had no words for the conversation anymore and just rolled his eyes, mocking the shrug from earlier with the same flick of the wrists and angle of his elbows that Marco always had. It did make sense why he hadn’t seen Eren at all yet. During the past few days he avoided Eren like the plague and blocked out the fact they shared any classes together at all.

            The hallway finally ended with the bookroom before them and then a classroom on either side of them. Jean had stopped before the doorway on his left and smacked his forehead with the palm of his hand, holding it there for a solid ten seconds.

            Jean groaned. Marco sighed.

            He forgot his text book.

            “Fuck.”

* * *

 

            The day was over and done with and Jean honestly couldn’t remember a lick of it. He just remembered it was hell compared to all the other days. He also remembered the fact that his brain could not stop relating **_everything_** to a certain drummer boy from across the train tracks.

           _Well it is hump day_ Connie would probably have said had he actually showed up to school that day.

            Whatever, Jean had other things to do than wonder where that bald kid was anyway, much less where anyone else was. Wait, where was Jean?

            The fakest leather cracking under his fingertips? The dried gum under the seat, a driver too large to be legal?

            Oh.

            When did it get to this time of the day?

The male hadn’t realized the school day was over with and just followed the swarm of students exiting the school. He only realized once he was already sitting on the bus home, not having any reason to stick around longer than necessary.

For probably the billionth time that day the two-toned boy exhaled a very much needed sigh. He stretched his arms above his head and his legs under the seat in front of him before retracting all limbs. He watched the last kid find his seat near the front and Jean decided to find interest elsewhere.

            He rested his chin uncomfortably against his knuckles as he glared out the bus’s filthy window, his elbow precariously balancing on the ledge of the bus walls. The teen watched the world outside as the bus began to lurch forward out of the loop and onto streets of Trost. The bus felt like an entirely separate world from the one he saw outside, the sounds were very much that of dying cattle submerged under the Atlantic Ocean for all he knew. Teens of all sorts were expressing all sorts of unpleasant sounds and it drove Jean into thinking of music hoping to drown out the world around him; if only he hadn’t forgotten his headphones.

            It wasn’t long before Jean had to subject himself back into the dying cattle sounds when all he could think of was drum beats from a certain kid from a town not too far away. He was almost positive he was going crazy when he thought he could hear his voice as well.

            Jean’s eyes watched the scenery change gradually, having given up on sounds to occupy his mind, dead trees, houses, stores… Nothing was really registering in his head and he couldn’t grasp a single solid thought unless it was delving deeper into pointless thoughts of the guy that was Eren Jaeger and all the events after meeting the prick.

            It was enough to draw a repulsed expression out of him.

            Even so, he tried to occupy his mind with other things, what he planned to do once he got home, what time to shower and what not. He even thought about new music he could try to write, he was horrible with lyrics for the most part but the notes came to him easily enough.

            Just not this time.

            _Dammit…_

Last ditch resort was imagining silky ebony locks against ivory skin. His hands wandering and just gently brushing a calloused thumb over rosy lips. But those eyes, oh those _eyes!_ They were the color… of…

            “You seem to be thinking hard,” someone noted from the seat in front of him.

            Jean furrowed his eyebrows and sat up in his seat, eyeing the mop of hair before him. So he _wasn’t_ going crazy.

            “Fuck you.” _Of all people..._

            “Wow, yeesh, I’m sorry, fantasizing some dirty porn and I just ruined it for you?” The tone was annoyingly sarcastic and Jean felt the urge to kill someone.

            “Why’re you even on this bus? I thought you weren’t even a full time student at our school, not like our school needs anymore assholes like you in it.”

            Eren cocked a brow and just scoffed. “I think the school has more than enough because you go there.” Jean glared back with a questioning look. “Yeah, I just made a comeback, what, are you an idiot too? You just fit the jock cliché, huh?”

            “Fuck you,” was all Jean could think to say while pinching the bridge of his nose.

            “You already said that.”

            With an exaggerated sigh Jean let go of his face and just growled at the jerk before him. “Just answer my question already, dammit.”

            “Answer mine first,” Eren countered simply, not missing a beat.

            “No, I’m too good for shit like that, it’s tasteless and stupid. You’re turn shit-wad.”

            “I stuck around after my last class to catch Armin’s bus so I wouldn’t have to walk or drive there myself.” Eren reached over and tugged Armin far enough upward for Jean to see the blond hair and blue eyes looking back at him sheepishly.

            “Hello,” he greeted. Jean totally forgot he and Armin shared the same bus going home, they tended to have other afterschool activities so he never really noticed.

            Jean squinted at Eren a moment before he waved at the other male. Eren let go and Armin fell back into his seat with a thump and just grumbled at Eren for the rough treatment.

            “Answer your question satisfactorily, your ‘neigh-ness’?”

            _Damn that Connie…_ “Go piss in a condom, you dick.”

            “When you can properly fit into one, dickless wonder.”

            “Okay Richard Dick-son, I’ll wait for the day.”

            They stared for a long while into each other’s eyes, finally tired of dick insults. Armin had basically shriveled up and crumbled into dust and took off on the wind, he didn’t want to be associated with either two at the moment.

            Eren let out a low growl as Jean’s eye twitched, challenging. Even on the turn that came up Eren didn’t topple over as he gripped onto the seat with one hand and kept his eyes focused on Jean’s. Hazel against the unusual shade of… Whatever that was.

            _Show off… Is this kid really all that special? I can’t believe this guy is good friends with people like Mikasa and Armin; he doesn’t deserve people like that. Damn this guy! Just leave already!_

            Jean let out a sigh he had no idea he had been holding and just rolled his eyes once more toward the heavens, finally breaking the eye contact. Eren mocked him in return.

            “Is that it then?” Jean crossed his legs and folded his hands, returning all the sass he had received from the brunet.

            “Just one more thing, you’ll get wrinkles if you continue to glare at me like that, even I don’t glare that hard at you.” Eren pointed to his forehead for example.

There wasn’t enough time for Jean to create any sort of remark as he got caught up watching the male grip tightly to the back of the seat once more but with more urgent-ness, not wanting to fly backward into the other seat, as the bus began to break to a stop with as much grace as broken glass. Jean just used his foot to keep his butt in place by pressing it into the back of the seat in front of him.

Jean’s eyes averted elsewhere and it was brought to his attention the multiple lines of different lengths, thicknesses, and shades over Eren’s hands.  

Scars. Almost all of them focused around his knuckles but a few lining the tops of his hands, some even looked similar to stab wounds Jean saw on TV than regular old cuts or burns. Jean didn’t get the chance to examine further or even ask about them as Eren hefted his grey backpack over one shoulder before scooting Armin out of the seat. “Let’s go, Armin.”

Jean watched eyes wide still as Eren waited for the aisle to clear up so he could exit his row on the bus. He saw Jean’s expression and just gave a look of inquiry. It didn’t last as he turned around to push on Armin again to hurry up the speed of their departure.

            “Ah, but wait, Eren!” but Armin was already carried away by Eren and off the bus. “Bye!” He shouted from outside before he turned to follow Eren toward his building. They seemed to already be chatting away at something and it continued to leave a nasty taste in his mouth.

            “That cocky bastard…” _Now he has me making indirect dick-insults even after it was over and done with…_

            Jean was the third stop; the bus was almost completely silent save for the sounds of face sucking some rows back. He didn’t even bother properly putting his backpack on and just slid whatever strap he grabbed first onto his shoulder and walked off the bus by himself. He ignored the bus driver entirely as he stepped off onto the concrete.

            The yellow monstrosity almost immediately pulled itself along the street once more as soon as  Jean took his first step toward his house, not having to walk far to get to the driveway and then the front door.

            He shook the handle of the door, finding it left unlocked, _whoops,_ and walking right on in. His mother was out still, work, shopping, he had no clue, so he had the house to himself. Jean assumed his mother didn’t realize the front door was left unlocked so he sighed, relieved, that was one lecture he didn’t want to sit through again. He shut the door behind him with the kick of his foot and remembered to lock the door this time.

            Jean practically kicked off his shoes, not bothering to put them away properly as he shuffled into the kitchen to find something to munch on.

            _You gotta be one messed up guy to have scars like that all over your hands._ Jean thought to himself for the sixth time since he registered the scars.

            Jean found himself biting into an apple he didn’t bother to wash in the sink, the cold and sensitive sensation running through his teeth and he winced. Jean pressed the pads of his fingers to his teeth as if that would help any.

            He dropped his bag beside the couch as he threw himself onto it, reaching around without looking for the TV remote with his unoccupied hand. The TV was on soon enough and he flipped through channels until he stopped at something not totally worthless as a show. He laid on the couch like that for a while, throwing his plans for the rest of the day down the drain. He’d do his homework later, maybe as soon as his mom came back, yeah, that seemed likely.

            It was about two hours later and every cartoon sucked after that, all the TV shows were trash, and the only thing he could even bring himself to be remotely interested in was the news. He sat through the first five minutes, something about kittens being born with something rare, a near plane crash, the weather… Jean had enough of just lying there and forced his tired body up.

            He walked over toward the stairs while yawning and took each step in twos. Jean stretched his body as he did so, trying to bring enough life back into him to get even a little bit motivated to do something productive.

            The hallway was just as dead as downstairs, most of the doors a jar or wide open. The teen eyed them all. His door was shut, and so was his mother’s. There was something about the fact that these two doors were closed that bothered him.

            But Jean didn’t feel like investigating something probably entirely ridiculous and unworthy of his time that he just walked all the way down to his room and made himself comfy.

            After wasting time strumming through old sheet music on his guitar, after you know, tuning it after not using it for so long, Jean found himself almost done with almost all of his homework due the next day. He wasn’t sure if any of the answers were right, if he had proper grammar in any of the short answers and in that one essay, but he could care less. It had been a while since he was able to go through that much homework in one go when he had been complaining about all of his issues earlier that day. He thought about maybe even getting ahead but the vibrating emptiness in his stomach stopped him.

            His mother still wasn’t back yet and he was beginning to wonder what would be for dinner. It was past six, the sun was gone somewhere, and he was still alone.

            The male grunted as he got off his ass and padded back down the hall, down the stairs, and back into the kitchen. His phone was notification-less, his stomach empty, his mind too tired to think anymore.

            He found himself before the fridge once again and realized there was a note left on the whiteboard attached to the door. _Don’t eat a lot; we’ll be eating out tonight._

            “Eating out…?” Jean mouthed just as the front door opened.

            “Jean? Jeaaaaan!” the familiar drone of his mother’s voice called from not too far away.

            “Kitchen!” he finally replied with a quick glance back at the fridge.

            His mother’s heavy feet thudded over toward his direction but it was accompanied by another pair of feet that he did not immediately recognize.

            “Ah, Jean, look who is here!”

            Jean’s eyes slowly panned upward toward the voice and the figure behind the speaker. His eyes widened and his jaw went slack. He wasn’t entirely sure which emotions he should be feeling and which ones he should be acting on.

            There was a wave from the figure that was not his mother and a pretty play on his face that was meant to be a warm smile. The teeth were straight, white, and his eyes squint as the muscles in his face pulled from the strain of a smile, almost too perfect to really be questioned.

            But Jean knew.

            There was a wetness on his lips from his tongue before he scraped away at the sensation with his teeth. His eyebrows twitched at the sudden drop of the hand and the unreasonable amount of clothes layering the person before him.

            “How- Why- You’re here?” Jean managed to say although in a single whisper. His face finally fixed itself a look of confusion and wariness.

            “Wow, jeez- I’d expect a more warm welcome than that, huh, ‘Ntie”

            “Jean, be nice, remember him? He’s your cousin, he came to visit, isn’t that sweet of him?”

            “Yeah, I remember him. He’s **his** nephew…” Jean stated, the acrimony slipping into his words purely on accident. Or so he allowed himself to believe.

            The other responded with a half-feigned look of disappointment before he pulled the remains of a smile back onto his tanned face; it was obvious he had been enjoying a bit too much sun lately and it was already September.

            “Oh Jean, hush, don’t speak so rudely about your father like that,” his mother tried to say with playfulness. Her attempt at keeping the mood light was hardly doing anything for the situation.

            Jean didn’t allow himself to get caught up in his lingering emotions of his father and looked for something to stare at instead. He ended up staring at the hanging bananas at the corner of the counter. He transferred his negative emotions via glares at the long yellow fruits.

            The other male just tightened the wrinkles in his forehead and pulled a corner of his smile even higher. His cousin, had dirty blond, shaggy hair, and was only a few centimeters taller than Jean. He was probably also only a few years older and he went by the name of Dieter.

            “Well, I didn’t come here for nothing; let’s go back to that restaurant we always went to, hmm? Ey, Jean-bo?”

            “Don’t call me that.” The look on Dieter’s face was just borderline shocked. His mother cocked an eyebrow at him. “ _Please.”_ He sighed and took a moment longer to blink. “It’s embarrassing…”

            Jean tightened his crossed arms he hadn’t realized he had folded over his chest and flicked a few sheepish glances over at his elder cousin. Dieter wasn’t responsible for Jean’s sour mood with his father, so Jean had no right to be treating him like he was. So the teen tried to convey his apology through a sheepish smile.

            “Hard to break old habits,” came Dieter’s jolly response. Jean looked over at him curiously through his peripherals. “I’ll try.”

            That was satisfactory enough for Jean and he dropped his arms.

            “Well come on, let’s go, I left the car running.”

* * *

 

            They drove awhile through town, Dieter asking the common questions anyone who hadn’t seen someone in forever would ask. Jean answered with as little words as possible if it was a boring question, but seemed to get into long rants about things he actually had interests in.

            Jean didn’t have a girlfriend. His mother added yet and he just grumbled. There was a girl he was interested in but he tried hard to avoid that little fact about himself.  He had probably grown a handful of centimeters since they last met and he did lose some fat and replaced it with muscle. His grades were flip flopping since the school year sort of just started and the events from last week were still somewhat fresh. Jean was sort of playing sports, sort of not, but he could care less. His fingers were getting rusty on the piano and for guitar but his vocals were still nice and exercised.

            Dieter knew how to keep a nonexistent conversation going.

            Jean and family were all seated in an Italian restaurant located just a few blocks away from the large dog park. It was almost literally the center of Trost and was quite well known throughout town for this very reason. (Not to mention good food, but the few vacationers that did go to Trost went to eat there a lot for location).

            Jean was always surprised at how authentic the food really was. They were famed for their ‘Italian’ food but when you ate there as many times as he did, the owners tend to ramble on about the differences in the food. For instance he had ordered a pizza for himself that was done in the original Napoli style, where pizza really started from and what not. His mother ordered her usual _Pasta alla Norma_ , which was basically red sauce and eggplants but was amazingly well done for its simplicity. And Dieter… Dieter had something from some obscure part of Italy that Jean never remembered to search up when he had the chance, but smelled good.

            Jean used utensils to eat the pizza from this place; if it was pizza from Pizza Hut or something then he’d probably use his hands but this was a semi-classy place and he always got criticism from the owner if he did so.

            With his mind on pizza he ignored most of the conversation Dieter was having with his mother. It mostly was about Dieter’s time in college down south past Maria County. He had found some friends from his early middle school and high school years there and was rooming with one of them at the moment. They talked about Dieter’s life for a bit before it moved along to something even less interesting to the male.

            He was about halfway through his meal and out of Sprite when he heard the conversation take a turn he honestly wasn’t expecting. It was finally something interesting but something he never would even want to talk about.

            Not then. Not there. Not when his life was already a cliché teenage mess.

            Jean dropped his hands onto the edge of the table and took steady breaths in as the two watched him carefully, mid-sentence.

            “Where did you hear this?” Jean uttered through his teeth.

            Dieter quickly looked to his side before he put his fork down, adjusting himself to face Jean better. “He called me himself. Honestly, I thought it was better you knew before being surprised by his return, I know how you are, Jean.”

            Jean dropped his utensils, partially landing on his plate and on the table but he didn’t care about how graceful he was. His eyes snapped open when his mother tried to say something and he just shot daggers.

            _He plans to come back? Come back without so much as a word between then and now. Fuck. Fuck him. Fuck this. Fuck._

          “What makes him think that I will just accept him back into this family after walking out like that?” Jean asked, just barely below shouting level.

            “Jean-” his mother interjected with concern flowing from every wrinkle on her face.

            “No! Ma- no. He never came home one night over a year ago, no explanation, returned only two calls promising to be back, never calling us first though, and never specified when he’d be back?” The volume of Jean’s voice only increased with each word. Random pairs of eyes darted over in their direction curiously.

            “Jean, calm down for a second,” Dieter attempted next, noticing the looks they were receiving.

“AND he has the balls to tell his _nephew,_ ” Jean threw his hand out to refer to his cousin. “That he is finally coming back and not his own **wife _or_ son?** He can come back but that doesn’t mean I will!”

            “Jean, wait, it isn’t like that!” Dieter called out to the teen as he pushed his seat out from the table and stormed towards the exit. He was already running down the street with nowhere in mind and glassy eyes when Dieter made it to the door, screaming, “Jean, come back!”

            But Jean was not going to go back. He wasn’t expecting such explosive behavior but it was too late to take back what he said now. So he kept running. Down the street past the large park and deeper into the apartment neighborhoods.

            It felt like ten minutes had passed by the time Jean realized where he had ended up. It wasn’t the nicest part of the neighborhood, but it wasn’t the worst. There were a few kids still playing around outside under the street lights. Jean immediately turned a corner away from the noise; he couldn’t deal with children right then and needed his space.

            The tears ended up never falling but it made his face feel heavy and his eyes sort of hurt. He slapped his cheeks a couple of times as he continued to walk down the long street, somehow feeling a draw toward one of the buildings. It seemed familiar to him yet Jean couldn’t remember.

            He stopped in front of the complex, the gate wide open and a few lights here and there lighting up the windows. A shiver ran along Jean’s shoulder down his arms and his spine. He left the house with just one of his many sweatshirts, assuming he wouldn’t have had to stay outside a building with a heater for very long. He rubbed his arms to bring out some heat but to no avail.

            The male felt weirded out by the fact that he was standing in front of a random building and was about to walk away when the front door suddenly opened and two familiar voices rolled along the breeze into his ears. He kept his eyes forward and didn’t turn when he was within earshot of their conversation.

            “Are you sure you’ll be okay going home by yourself?”

            “Do you really have to ask that every time I leave? Yes, I’ll be fine; I’ve done this at least an infinite amount of times already.”

            “Oh, hey Jean!”

            Jean was caught in an awkward situation and turned just marginally so toward the two voices with an expression of near constipation and confusion.

            “Oh, yeah, hey,” the brunet murmured. _Oh god… I forgot…_ “Fancy meetin’ you out here, huh?” Jean allowed himself to sigh before he fully turned and faced the bright eyed teen.

            Armin shuffled out from the comfort of the heated shelter in slippers and wrapped his arms around himself. “What are you doing here, Jean?”

            Jean eyed Eren for a single moment before he tore his eyes away to reply to Armin. “Just… goin’ out for a walk. Nothin’ much.”

            “You look kinda underdressed to just be ‘ _out for a walk_ ’,” Eren pointed out while giving Jean a full head-to-toe examination. Like a default action, Jean just replied to his comment with a glare.

            “Yeah, aren’t you cold? It feels like it’s forty degrees out here!”

            “Naw,” Jean slurred, lying through chattering teeth.

            Jean felt like he could like holes could be drilled into him from the intensity both pairs of eyes were giving him. Thankfully though, a voice called out from the complex to distract all three of them. “Arrrrmiiin!”

            Armin took a glance inside his apartment complex and sighed. “Well, I gotta go, don’t get into trouble, Eren!” Armin stopped mid-step just to point at his friend who just shrugged and rolled his eyes.

            “Of course, of course, I promise nothing.” It was Armin’s turn to roll his eyes.

            “Good night, Eren. Good night Jean.”

            The two of them watched the blond shuffle back into the complex and shut the door behind him, almost hesitating as he did so. But neither of them commented on it.

            Jean found himself feet away from Eren and once again locked in a heated battle of staring.

            “This is really starting to get old,” Eren finally said breaking their silence.

            Jean could only agree and clicked his tongue. “Yeah.”

            More silence.

            Eren turned his head away to look at the growing weeds at the corner of one of the yards. His skin looked strange under the white streetlights; it cast harsh shadows on the both of them, mostly Jean. From the angle Eren was at his face was mostly visible.  Jean took this chance to look Eren up and down. He was dressed hardly better than Jean was but seemed to not be entirely bothered by the cold. He even only let out a short sigh as a particularly cold breeze passed by them, the only indication that he could in fact feel the cold.

            The tanned male still had all the same clothes and items as when Jean last saw him. He wondered for a second what he spent all day doing at the coconut-haircut-boy’s house.

            Jean thought he heard the guy in front of him say something but he wasn’t sure so he prompted him to repeat.

            “Jean,” Eren said more clearly. He faced him more directly now and stepped closer, only making the shadows harsher on his face. “I’m… sorry.”

            _Huh?_

            “Sorry for what?” Jean could barely say without obviously shivering.

            Eren sighed and scratched his cheek. “I’ve been kinda rude to you?” He made it sound as if it was obvious.

_The bastard looks sheepish! **And** he’s fucking apologizing? To me? **And** he is being all shy about it? What is happening?_

            “Shouldn’t I be the one apologizing to you?” Jean nearly clapped a hand over his mouth. Words he thought he would never say aloud to this kid were just said in the span of one point five seconds. He could feel his cheeks flush at his own embarrassment of what he had just done.

            Eren tilted his head before he shrugged. “It’s alright if you don’t, I understand I can be quite the ass sometimes.”

            Mentally there was a long pause for Jean to scream ‘what the frick’ but in real time it was just a moment long enough to blink.

            “I can too, I still don’t see why you should apologize.” _But damn me for not just letting you do so! Fucking hell… I. Can’t. even…_

            “I antagonized you on the bus today and at least I’d like to apologize for that. I mean, you were already having a shitty day.” He paused long enough for Jean to convey his thoughts through his body language. “I can tell.”

            This was all bizarre for Jean. He felt the remainder of his heat go to his face. His brain felt overloaded with too many thoughts. He scratched absentmindedly at the back of his head, once again being reminded by the fact that he should re-shave his undercut, and forgot all about what had just happened at the restaurant.

            His words weren’t forming like they should in his brain and his mouth refused to do anything else but stay slack. His brain recovered enough for him to let out a long ‘uh’ but then it was all a jumble mess of words he wasn’t sure he wanted to say and which he wanted to mean. His teeth caught his lower lip before quickly releasing it.

            “I accept your apology… I guess.”

            The response from Eren was something he wasn’t entirely surprised by. He just shrugged and nodded with an almost completely blank expression of indifference.

            “Alright,” was all he said as he walked passed Jean and onto the sidewalk. Jean watched silently, still slightly dumbfounded. “If you’re not going the same way,” he pointed down the street. “I’ll be seeing you.”

            Eren began walking toward the opposite direction Jean had come from and only made it a few steps before Jean felt his body begin to move forward.

            “My house is closer if I walk this way,” he stated defensively.

            “Coolio.”

            They weren’t exactly walking side-by-side. Jean trailed behind, not really wanting to act all chummy just because the brunet apologized for one thing that he felt responsible for. If Eren could tell how Jean felt about the entire situation he didn’t allow any hints to show it.

            Walking mostly in silence, Jean ignored the vibrations in his pocket; he assumed it was his mother or Dieter. He wondered why it took so long for them to try and contact him after that scene he had caused, it really didn’t matter to him in the slightest but it was something worth wondering with the silence playing out between the two teens. The unusual silence only amplified their feet slapping the sidewalk. It also made his thoughts sound so much louder in his head than they actually were.

            There were a couple of turns here and there and Jean just followed along, not realizing just where Eren was walking until he realized he hardly knew where he was. It was maybe twenty long minutes later when Eren came to a stop at a lifeless intersection.

            “You know you have been following me for the last… fifteen? minutes right?” Eren turned his head up to the sky and let out a foggy breath before peering over his shoulder.

Jean hadn’t realized. He scanned his surroundings and read the street signs, shops, and building. He had gotten totally immersed in just following this guy around. He felt the heat rise to his head and he frowned sheepishly.

            His mouth opened to defend his actions but the brunet raised a hand and beat him to it. “Its fine, this is where we split anyway, I mean, you missed your chances quite a few times already but here is the last one.” Jean wasn’t sure what he had meant until it dawned on him. They had walked far enough to reach one edge of the town, the side closest to Shinganshina. “I’ll be seeing you, don’t get lost on the way back,” Eren teased.

            Jean wasn’t sure which set of words he should say first. After stumbling a bit he just blurt the first things his mind knew he could say. “ _You_ don’t get lost, idiot! I live here!” There was a hesitation as Eren’s head turned somewhat as he walked away but he continued on down the street as if nothing had happened. He made everything seem so easy, easy to get over, like there wasn’t this weird animosity between them or that situations weren’t exactly friendly most of the time they did see each other. His chill boiled Jean’s blood, but this time, he didn’t have the energy.

            The male clicked his tongue and turned on his heel and headed down the opposite direction, hoping that he would end up finding streets he’d recognize. It was a bit much to wish for, but it was a wish that would be granted nonetheless.

            The one wish that would come true for a long while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy biscuit over 7,000 words… this chapter is long… 
> 
> Someone actually commented on the FF version of this fic and was like, “THE KID WHO GOT SHOT WAS EREN?!?” or something and I had to die and laugh all at the same time. Sadly I couldn’t contact the person as it was a guest account but I just want to tell you thank you, person, for that, I seriously thought no one was going point out the whole shooting thing. Though I don’t really confirm nor deny this but I JUST WANTED TO THANK SOMEONE FOR MAKING MY DAY. I ADD RANDOM LITTLE DETAILS SOMETIMES FOR FUTURE CHAPTERS OKAY?
> 
> Please tell me what you think, especially where you think this will go or even where you want it to go xD Thanks for reading~
> 
> The comments that do get left or reviews give me great joy, so please keep them coming if you could. (Tumblr is [nomnomfever](http://www.nomnomfever.tumblr.com) yo)


	7. The Worried Coconut

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He is helping Armin cause it’s Armin, not because he felt responsible. Sorta. Kinda. Shut up!... Dip-shit...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I rewrote this chapter maybe 6 times before I finally ended up with this. I am so sorry it took this long. School was rough and sports were unforgiving, I never thought I’d be this busy xD Also since I have been so busy I disappeared from Tumblr but I am kinda back now? Also it helps that I am on break and I’ve been using this break to finish a bunch of projects, writing, art, and other stuff. So if you want to keep up to date with my life just follow me on Insta or Twitter, I tend to be more active there at a more constant basis @Bejerwin at least then you’ll know why I am taking forever to upload >.>; With that said, please enjoy this long awaited chapter!

 

            Jean spent the remainder of his lonely walk home in silence. He was unable, the entire walk, to even think anything more complex than walking the right direction toward his house. One foot in front of the other, he let himself just not think too hard and get back home before the moon began to share the sky with the sun and dawn broke.

            His house was finally insight and he had to stop right at the driveway to just breathe for a moment. He hadn’t realized he had trucked all the way home without even stopping, going at a near slow jog or fast walk the entire way there. Jean’s breath was still foggy as it rose up into the night sky and without even giving it a second thought; he began his short trek to his front door.

            It was open, amazingly enough, he was sure it would have been locked this time. Sure enough though, the door opened with a light _click_ and the difference in temperature could be felt at the threshold. All of it were miniscule thoughts in his brain as he shut the door behind him, locked it and double checking it as he struggled to toe off his shoes.

            His mind was still fairly blank until he heard his name being exclaimed from down the hall.

            “Jean!” It was his mother. The thudding of footsteps sounded all too loud in Jean’s ears. “We were worried sick!” Her expression matched her words but Jean had no energy left to react.

 _Why’d ya take so long to call then_ , he thought.

            “Where’d you go? I went out to look for you…” Dieter suddenly chimed in, appearing behind his mother with a similar expression. His voice faded while watching his younger cousin move about sluggishly.

            Jean bent over and plucked his shoes off the floor and put them on the rack. He completely ignored them as he did this and continued to take off his sweatshirt.

            “Jean?” One of the two voices quietly murmured, afraid they might scare him off once more.

            The male snapped his head up from what he was previously preoccupied with. He stared toward the two, tensely standing not too far away and it just reminded him of the incident at the restaurant. He had to use all of the discipline in his body to not convey his emotions through his face and just shook his head. “Not now, I am too tired for this tonight…”

            With those few words, Jean carried his sweatshirt and himself up the stairs and into his room. Neither Dieter nor his mother had the nerve to stop him and just resigned themselves to dealing with it later and went their separate ways as well.

            Jean was pleasantly surprised that he was allowed to just leave the situation so easily like that, although he knew he was going to have to deal with it at a later time.

            Time had passed so oddly that day. Now it seemed like time was just not passing at all. Jean had thrown his clothes onto his bed and went straight into the bathroom. He didn’t think twice about showering.

            His clothes sat on the bathroom floor in a heap. He emptied his pockets and placed the items on the counter. He gave himself a once over in the mirror, posed a few times, and then turned the dial on his shower.

            Jean let his hand tentatively gauge the water before stepping in, dousing his entire body in water.

            The water from the shower was hot, almost scalding his mother had said once. But it felt good washing over his head, between all places known very well to him. He pulled at his hair, measuring it out again after he had shampooed it and made another note to get a haircut. He conditioned and massaged his scalp. Jean scrubbed his skin much more gently than normal, taking his time to wash away all the stress, the smell of his strong, yet refreshing body soap filling his bathroom. It cleared his mind and he could feel his face loosen up along with all the muscles he’s ever used.

            So, all of them.

            He stepped out after he shut off the water. He let his body drip onto the bathroom rug, drying his hair followed by his skin.

            When he realized he hadn’t brought anything into the bathroom with him, he just wrapped his towel around his hips. He popped his head out the door, the steam from his shower rolling out from the small space he had created. Seeing the coast was clear he strolled back into his room and promptly shut his door behind him. (Honestly it was not like the other two people in the house with him hadn’t seen him practically naked but…)

            Jean dried himself off more properly once in his room, turning on the TV crammed into the corner in front of his bed to listen to something other than the movement below, signaling the presence of others.

            He slipped on his boxers and decided he didn’t even want to deal with pajama pants, most of them had already been worn anyway. He found an old band T-shirt from his junior high days that was way too large for him then, but hung loosely, yet nicely on his body now. It was snug in his favorite places and just the right comfortability to sleep in or even go out in. The print on it was faded, he had loved that shirt. Jean was finishing up towel drying his hair when his phone began dinging.

            The towel fell around his shoulders as he reached across the bed to see who had texted him. There were texts he hadn’t seen from Dieter and his mother, the most recent one though were from Marco and another from Armin.

            Jean decided to read Marco’s texts first and scrolled up to begin reading.

 

**Marco -Freckled Jesus- Bodt**

_Jean!_

_..._

_Okay so you must be busy right now._

_Do you mind sending pictures of the_

_board from history?_

_Oh, and do you want to go with_

_Mina, Annie, and I to go see the last_

_showing of that new animated fuck_

_at the drive-in?_

_*film_

_I MEANT FILM!_

_Film…_

 

            Jean let out a dry chuckle at Marco’s only typo and quickly checked the time. What day was it again? _Wednesday_. He tapped out a question and waited hardly twelve seconds for a reply.

 

**Jean Kirschstein**

_When? Where?_

 

**Marco -Freckled Jesus- Bodt**

_This Friday at 7:30, we’ll meet up_

_at the cafe and carpool in Annie’s_

_dad’s truck_

 

**Jean Kirschstein**

_Ill be there_

_Who's doin snacks?_

 

**Marco -Freckled Jesus- Bodt**

_We’re all bringing food to share_

 

            Jean typed _okay_ and flopped onto his bed, holding his phone over his head. A word bubble popped up soon after and the conversation was quickly over after Jean sent the pictures Marco asked for.

            Everything after separating from Eren not so long ago was uneventful and boring. Jean almost fell asleep when his mind began to wander. It wandered so far that he remembered that he had received a text from Armin as well and he decided he might as well get that over and done with before falling asleep.

            Jean brought the phone to his face and opened up the text thread with Armin. His eyes squinting as he read the unusually messy texts.

           

            **Armin Arlert**

_Jean did you walk home with Eren_

_?_

            The next text, sent a few minutes afterward, was messier.

 

            **Armin Arlert**

_Jean i need to know where you guys_

_went afterbmy hosue_

 

            And the rest progressively got sloppier, as each text rolled through the thread.

 

**Armin Arlert**

_Jean is Ren with u rn_

_is he ko_

_ok_

_where is he_

_?_

_i am sorry to still be petering uio_

_i am just_

_thisis important_

_where is eren jean_

_iM worried_

_He hadnt gone hom his dad calld_

_Jean pls message me soon_

_I need to know_

 

Jean was about to reply when the last text came in, cleaned up, neat, grammatically correct to the best of texting ability…

 

            **Armin Arlert**

_Jean if you don’t tell me something_

_Eren could be in serious trouble._

 

There was a pause between the first and the second half of the message, and Jean had a sinking feeling in his stomach that what Armin almost sent was ‘ _dead_ ’, not _‘in serious trouble_ ’. Nothing told Jean that, he just felt that somewhere in him he knew Armin almost typed _dead_. And he was sure Armin meant it too.

            Something inside him pushed for him get up and do something. He had no reason to care, he told himself, about that kid. But he did care even the slightest about Armin. Armin was a kind kid, intelligent, honest and humble; Jean had a sweet spot for people like that. And thinking about it, if he could help it, he wouldn’t turn his back on a friend of a friend of a friend. He felt hatred for Eren, still didn’t understand that part, but he didn’t ever wish the worst for him.

            Jean didn’t waste any more time thinking and pushed off his bed. He had grabbed a different jacket, a warm jacket, and thumped down the stairs, quickly putting on a pair of the same pair of shoes from earlier. He pocketed his phone and threw on his jacket, running out the door without caring to check if it closed as he ran down the driveway. His mother shouted for him from inside the house but he hadn’t noticed as he debated on using the car or running.

            _I won’t get any speeding tickets for running…_ he thought and was on his way.

           He rang Armin as he jogged the same way he came after parting from Eren. Armin picked up almost instantly.

            “Jean?” Armin’s voice quivered on the other end.

            “Armin.” Jean said much more surely. “What’s up with Eren?”

            Armin let out a small whimper but played it off as a sigh. “Where did Eren go after you parted from him?”

            “He headed toward the edge of town, south toward Shinganshina. Why?”

            There was a silence. Jean was going to say something else but Armin finally spoke up. “What exactly did he say?”

            “Uhh… He said uh… He didn’t say where he was going, but he went toward the edge of town.”

            “So you don’t know if he got a ride, took the bus, nothing?”

            “I just saw him walk,” Jean replied running out of breath.

            “Was there anything… Weird about him?” There was weird background noise but Jean dismissed it.

            “I always think there’s something weird about him, you gotta be more specific.”

            “Alright, fair enough… Just tell me everything that happened up until you parted ways then.”

            Jean slowed his pace down as he recalled the past events. “Well we left your place together going down the street. I followed behind him for quite a while without realizing it; he had to point it out to me at the intersection where we separated. He said stuff like, ‘this is where we split anyway,’ uh,” Jean paused his thoughts to catch his breath. “‘You’ve missed your chances quite a few times already but this is the last one,’ or something. And then he told me to not get lost and I just shouted at him that I lived here and that he was stupid probably; he hadn’t said anything before that so.” Jean gasped for some air and let Armin think for a moment.

            Armin hummed to himself on the other end of the line. There was weird background noise again, this time it lasted longer, almost like tapping.

            “Ar-hah-min?”

            “Jean, what street was it?”

            “What?”

            “The street, what street did you last see him at!”

            The sudden rise in Armin’s voice startled Jean. He came to a stop and looked up around him, reading signs, looking for something that stood out. He moved his gaze about quickly and continued walking. After a few minutes of mumbling he finally thought he was figuring it out.

            “I think it was around-”

            “Jean!” Armin’s voice shouted, but not through the digital filter of his phone but through the crisp night air.

            He turned around on his heel and dropped his phone to his side. He ended the call and pocketed his phone once his eyes focused in on the blond boy standing across the street from him.

            Jean scanned for cars before jogging over to Armin, who had also put his phone away. Going by what he was wearing he had also thrown on whatever was closest to him and ran out of the house.

            His phone vibrated. He pulled it back out just to ignore the call coming in from his mother.

            “Is this the street?” Armin asked, fear lacing his voice.

            “This was the street,” Jean confirmed. “He walked down that way,” Jean said while pointing in the direction. “What are you doing here?”

            “Looking for Eren, what are you doing here?”

            Jean bit his lip and forced himself to answer. “Well, I thought that…” Jean’s ears felt hot, he didn’t really want to admit it even to himself the reason. “I mean, I was the last to see him and…”

            Armin picked up on how Jean felt and flashed him a knowing smile. “It’s alright; you don’t have to say it. Thank you.” His smile faded and his eyebrows furrowed. He turned and stared down the street for a moment before he motioned for Jean to follow.  
            Jean didn’t say anything until they walked the entire length of the first block; he just watched Armin’s expression become more and more worried.

            “Where do you think he could’ve gone? I mean, why would he not go home right away?” Jean finally asked.

            “Well, it’s not that… His dad called, telling me to send Eren home already, and knowing Eren he would have told his family he was on his way, but he didn’t. Meaning, he hadn’t gone home, hadn’t told his parents anything… ” Armin’s tone led Jean to believe that there was more to it than Eren simply not going home.

            “So where would he be?”

            Armin swallowed, the streets becoming less and less populated with stores and more houses. “I can think of a few places he’d be.” Jean waited for Armin to continue but it seemed that Armin was too lost in thought. A thought passed through Jean’s head, he wasn’t sure how spot on he was but he wondered if Eren was doing something delinquent-like right then. It didn’t seem too farfetched; Eren had had a history of fights before. Jean shot the idea down, giving him the benefit of the doubt; Armin did say Eren had stopped doing those sorts of things.

            They had walked for a good twenty-five minutes out of town and onto the long stretch of road that led back to Shinganshina. Only a few buildings dotted the roads yet there was still no sign of Eren.

            Armin’s eyes were flashing all over the place. Armin looked up at Jean, his expression grim. “You said you knew a few places he could be, where are they? Have you tried calling him? Or any of his other… friends?” Jean thought it was hard to believe Eren had any other friends save for the ones he’s met already.

            Armin licked his lips looked and straight ahead once again. “I’ve already called those that would most likely have an idea, none of them know. And he’s probably at none of those places.”

            “Why not?”

            “He promised he wouldn’t.”

            Jean gave Armin his best _‘what are you smoking?’_ kind of face. Armin was not making any sense to him.

            “Why can’t you tell me anything?”

            “It’s not my place to tell,” Armin replied quickly.

            “Even though you said quite a bit of stuff on the ride back to Trost last weekend? Armin, I’m not an idiot.”

            “I never said you were. Jean, that was my fault, not this time though, I won’t do it again, and it’s really not my place to say. I will not talk about Eren’s past any more than what is already obvious.”

            “Is he in some kind of trouble?” Jean pressed.

            Armin snapped his head and Jean stiffened up. Before the blond could say anything his phone began ringing and he quickly answered, not even checking the number.

            The voice on the other end of the line was deep, definitely not Eren’s. He thought he recognized it, but he was not entirely sure of himself. Armin was silent as he listened to the man, replying in short sentences.

            “No, he hadn’t called.”

            “It’s been… over an hour now.”

            “No, no, yes, no…”

            Armin hung up, saying he’d call back if anything else came up, and asked to be kept up to date.

            “Who was that?” Jean inquired quietly.

            “Uh, police, they have someone looking right now for him, and told us to go back home.”

            Jean cocked his eyebrow. “You’re not going home are you?”

            “Of course not, I did all my homework anyway.” Armin grinned nervously. Jean returned the smile and they both continued walking.

            “You know, if you don’t tell me something, I’m going to imagine weird shit about Eren.”

            Armin chuckled, that was a good sign. “Don’t you do that already?” Jean quietly admitted to himself that he did. “Why are you so interested in Eren?”

            Jean frowned in disgust. “To be honest, I hate myself for it, but I want to know more about the guy I can’t stand so I can at least find something to dislike about him so I don’t feel so bad about it anymore.”

            “What a twisted sense of logic you have… I am honestly surprised you haven’t heard anything about him before, I mean, you know he got into fights a lot.”

            “Yeah.”

            “And that he can cook.”

            “What does that have to do with anything?”

            “And you know he’s a good drummer.”

            “I will neither confirm nor deny.”

            “C’mon Jean, you know as much as anyone else by now! Once I tell you, you’d probably recognize the stories; you’d probably look at him a lot worse than you do now!”

            “What’s that supposed to mean?!”

            “I’m just saying!” Armin defended.

            “So tell me!”

            “Eren doesn’t like me talking about his past.”

            “But you already-!” Armin gave him a look that shut him up. “How is he still so difficult even when he’s not present…” the male grumbled. Armin shrugged and chuckled once more. “Wipe that smug look off your face.” Armin just grinned wider. “Fuck you Armin,” Jean growled, playfully punching his arm.

            “Fine, if you’re so curious ask him yourself.”

            “If we find him that is.” _Fucking shit._

            Armin’s expression fell and his eyes seemed distant. Jean grit his teeth, he really should watch his damn mouth sometimes.

            “Hey, I didn’t mean it like that, I’m sorry-”

            “No, you were just trying to lighten the mood, it’s fine.” Armin sighed, their pace slowed down. “Why don’t we rest at the park over there.”

            Jean looked up from the sidewalk and saw the dim outline of playground equipment, void of energetic creatures called children. He agreed and both made their way to the swing set.

            They sat down and began to push themselves gently, the chains creaking somberly. Jean had taken that moment to observe Armin, his eyes were locked onto the ground. His face was still full of worry but less tight, as if he was tired. It was hard to see the blue in his eyes the way he tilted his head down. Armin had buried his hands deep into his sweatshirt pockets, probably clenching his fists in frustration over not finding Eren yet. Maybe it was the weather or maybe it was his emotions but Jean could see Armin shaking as well.

            Jean checked his phone for the time.

            10:26 pm.

            Eren was last seen at around 8:45, maybe, and he left the house almost twenty minutes before that. Jean realized that he had been out for only thirty minutes already looking for this one idiot who he didn’t much enjoy the company of. But here he was, sitting on a cold swing set with that guy’s best friend, scouring all over town for him.

            Jean rolled his eyes at how much has changed within a week.

            The school year just fucking started.

            “We’ll find him, Armin,” Jean murmured, rubbing his friend’s back meaningfully. He wasn’t entirely sold on the idea of being friends yet, but he definitely wasn’t his enemy or anything.

            Armin snapped his head up, making Jean pull away like he was suddenly burned by touching him. The breeze had just stopped, everything seemed silent. Jean had never seen him so alert, no pun intended.

            “What’s up?” came Jean’s quiet question.

            “Do you smell… cigarettes?” He sniffed the air quickly and looked around at the different playground equipment. His blue eyes squinted over at the colorful slide.

            “Now that you mention it, yeah. Think there was someone smoking in the park before we got here?” That seemed unlikely as it was too strong to have been lit before they got there, but Jean didn’t like the idea of sharing a park at night with some stranger. “Should we leave?”

            “They’re still here,” Armin whispered, pointing at the top of the slide. Smoke spiraled up into the night sky. “Only a handful of people come to this playground to smoke, I think I know who.”

            “Wha-?”

            “And since I know Eren is missing right now, and trying to quit might I add, it’s gotta be Ymir.” Armin stated aloud.

            _So Eren smokes?_

            The person lying down at the top of the spiraling slide made a few sounds while moving about, and slid down. Both males watched carefully as they saw a pair of combat boots, ripped jeans, and then the rest of the person come into view. They flicked the ashes off their nearly done cigarette and took a drag from it.

            “Yo. I was wondering when you’d figure out you weren’t alone.”

            “Ymir?” Jean asked puzzled.

            “Wazzup sugar?” Ymir smirked around her cigarette, quickly winking at him.

            Ymir was a tomboyish female that went to Trost High, her situation was sort of confusing as she was supposed to be a senior but she had been in and out of school since her sophomore year, so she may or may not be a junior still. Jean had a few classes with her since she first transferred to Trost, but he had never had a reason to interact with her, much less befriend her.

            She was actually really pretty for all the clothes she used to cover her athletic body and the long bangs that she used to frame her face. One thing for certain was that her squinty-eyed gaze could pierce.

            Feeling silence begin to settle Jean found himself stumbling to start a conversation. “So uh, how are you and Historia? Heard you two started, uh, dating.”

            “Eh, honestly no different from how we were before; she is just much more open with me about things. There was no ‘honeymoon phase’ if that’s what you were wondering.”

            Jean pressed his lips into a tight line and bobbled his head. “Ah.”

            “Yeah, ‘ah’.”

            Silence started to creep in around them again. Jean could feel the bumps under his skin, it wasn’t a pleasant sensation. He found himself toeing the ground beneath him as he swung casually in the swing.

            “So uh, what are you doing here?” Jean finally asked as Armin began to become restless.

            “Historia got pissed, I got pissed, we had a fight, so I’m blowing off steam.”

            Armin and Jean both shrugged, it wasn’t all that surprising.

            “I was going to head back after I smoked a few, she apologized first this time.” She seemed smug about that. Jean was more concerned by how many ‘a few’ was.

            “Not to sound rude by cutting you off, but Ymir, do you know anything about where Eren could be?” Armin said while standing up. Jean followed suit.

            Ymir flicked the cigarette away and the smirk on her face only grew into an all-knowing grin. “What doesn’t good ol’ Ymir not know?”

            “Ymir…”  
            “Chill, chill, I’ll tell you.” Ymir watched Armin flick his eyes frantically at Jean but he didn’t notice. “I know the situation; I won’t say a thing kiddo.” Ymir stood up and closed the space between her and the two males. “I saw him talking to the guys from the bar, _Black n’ Blue_. They had cornered him on ‘ _Happy Lane’_ and that was the last I saw.”

            Jean knew those names. _Black n’ Blue_ was the name of one of the shadiest bars in the lower Rose County, it was said that a lot of underground work goes on there. _‘Happy Lane’_ was the codename for one of the most infamous streets in Trost, he wasn’t sure which street it was hence its anonymity, if you knew where it was, knew what to say and to whom, you could get whatever you wanted and for unusually good prices. You could get anything even during the daytime with everyone and anyone watching, that’s how good the people were. Or, bad…? The catch was you were deeply bound to the people who run the street, causing any sort of trouble for them would mean hell to pay later.

 _What did Eren have to do with the bar that was linked to over 20 different murders over the past year, and the street where you could literally get your hands on a billion dollars’ worth of any drug you wanted?_ Jean wasn’t sure if those numbers were right but it sounded cooler.

            “How many of them?” Armin asked.

            “Four. Nothing he couldn’t handle.”

            “But Ymir…”

            “Yeah, I know what you mean… Anyways, shouldn’t you be calling someone about this? This isn’t a situation for you to be meddling with, blondy, you know that, and you know even better how your buddies are going to react when they find out you’re not home studying or some shit.” Ymir’s lips spread widely, showing her toothiest grin Jean had ever seen, morphing the freckles on her face.

            Armin’s eyes widened. “Don’t you dare say anything about this…!” Ymir hummed.

            “You remind me of Historia sometimes…” She raised her hand and began playing with Armin’s golden bangs.

            “Leave him alone, Ymir,” Jean found himself saying, grabbing her wrist. She jerked away away from his grip and glared at him for a second.

            “Armin and I are cool, right Armin? Tell ya what, I’ll not say a single word, just owe me a favor the next time I have a need, okay?”

            He simply nodded.

            “So about calling you know who…?”

            “I can’t ask him to… No…He’s done so much already, I can’t ask him again.” Ymir shrugged at him, pouting mockingly. Armin glared and Ymir stopped.

            Jean looked between the two awkwardly, unsure of what he should be doing. Armin looked over at him and apologized with his eyes. Ymir stared at Jean as well, but with her lazy eyes boring holes into him. She cocked her eyebrow and pouted.

            “Shouldn’t you be at home, Jeany-boy?” Her tone was as if she knew something again. There was a sparkle in her eyes that Jean did not quite understand.

            “What?”

            “I’ve heard a thing or two about you. You hate Eren’s guts, so what are you doing helping Armin find him? I’d imagine someone like Annie over you any day. Even Annie has a kinder soul than you.”

            Jean scowled, his face felt hot. Jean wasn’t the best of guys out there but it wasn’t like he was heartless either. “Can’t I do what I want? I am a free individual after all.”

            Ymir’s eyebrow rose higher as she crossed her arms across her chest. “I’m surprised.” Jean raised his eyebrow back at her. “Well whatever, I’ve said my say, so I’ll just leave the both of you two to it. See you _two_ at school.” She emphasized ‘two’ in a way that made Armin’s mouth dry; as if she was sure they wouldn’t find Eren tonight. Ymir winked and quickly turned away, walking through the park and disappeared into the night.

            Jean sighed and mumbled a few curses under his breath. The night was not going to end anytime soon, he was sure of it.

            “Can we trust her?”

            Armin didn’t look up at Jean as his eyes were still focused on Ymir’s disappearing figure. “I have no reason to doubt her. But I’d rather hope that she was wrong.” The blond slapped his forehead with the palm of his hand. “Jean, you should just go. You don’t have any reason to be involved with this.”

            “And you do?” _Well I mean, he’s your best friend and all, but you don’t have anything to do with thugs from that shady bar…_

            Armin pulled out his phone and began scrolling his phone numbers. Jean didn’t have a good angle so he couldn’t tell who he was trying to get a hold of. A second later Armin just pocketed his phone once more, deciding against it. He looked up once more at the taller male with an exhausted expression, as if he was losing hope as each minute passed.

            Jean felt a pang inside him and instinctively placed a hand on the other’s back, guiding him out of the park. “Let’s, keep looking.”

Armin didn’t have to say anything for Jean to guess what he was thinking, all the possible situations running through his head. Maybe Eren got beat by those four guys, and was hurt somewhere. He could have been kidnapped by them even. Or maybe Eren was just straight up killed. Jean wasn’t sure why these situations were at all possible, but that’s what it seemed from the way Armin acted when he found out who Eren was last with.

            Black n’ Blue.

            Happy Lane.

            From those two names alone Jean was beginning to think that Eren was a drug addict who got into some beef with dealers who were regulars at Black n’ Blue.

            Jean was starting to think he wasn’t that far from the truth.

            At some point Jean and Armin found themselves unsure of where else to look. Forty minutes had passed since they left the park, following their first lead the entire time. Thirty minutes were spent roaming through town, checking a few alleyways, and the other ten were spent on a walk back toward the direction of their houses. The only change in the situation was that the evening got colder, and their feet began to ache with each step they took.

            They had made their way back onto the street Jean had last seen Eren. Jean almost immediately began to feel guilt knotting up inside him. But it wasn’t _his_ fault that Eren was missing. He was just… One of the last people to see him.

            Jean frowned to himself, he was getting worked up over nothing.

            As Jean fought with himself over whether he should feel guilty or not, the two teens continued walking. He walked Armin as close to his house as Jean’s route home permitted. Armin was a tiny ball of worry all the way back and Jean had nothing he could say that would make the boy feel any better. They were both silent, listening to the rustle of leaves and branches, watching the sidewalk pass beneath their feet.

            The silence seemed to intensify. The breeze stilled and it was just the ringing of Armin’s phone that caught their attention.

            They stopped in their tracks and looked down at the source of the sound. Armin didn’t make any quick movements to answer as if afraid, it was odd to consider but Jean felt he would have done the same.

            It rang three times before he answered, wide-eyed. Jean just kept his eyes on Armin’s expression, reading it for some indication of what the person on the other end of the line might be telling the blond boy.

            Armin sighed suddenly and his tense shoulders dropped.

            “Eren… You… “

            “What?” Jean asked quickly, instantly more curious than he already was about the phone call.

            “I’ve been looking for you all night with Jean, your dad was worried about you, you know!... What, oh… Jean was with me because he was,” Armin paused to look at Jean who gulped instinctively. “He happened to be out when I ran into him while looking for you,” he ended up saying, which really wasn’t a lie but it felt just as dirty as one. “No, your mom doesn’t know, we didn’t think it would be good to stress her out anymore, she was already asleep when your dad called so she had no idea you weren’t even home yet… Where did you go then?... What? Okay but how did you get home then, you could have at least responded to all the texts we’ve been leaving you…! Oh.” Armin finally calmed down and took a second to breathe after bombarding his best friend with questions, his lips cracked a smile of relief, and his intensity was gone. “Just don’t scare us like that anymore.”

            There was a light feeling that spread throughout Jean, beginning at his chest and ending at the tips of his fingers. He felt light, relieved, and he hadn’t realized how tense he was himself during the entire night. He was too tired to really justify his actions or lie to himself about whatever it was he was doing or feeling and was just glad that, one, Eren was safe from whatever harm Armin imagined him to be in, and two, Armin was no longer stressed. Stress was contagious, he could hear Marco saying, and seeing Armin stressed, stressed him and that was a good enough reason for Jean for why he felt what he did.

            Jean chuckled to himself at how he’s changed from hating Eren to being glad he’s home and safe in one night. He was sure it would change tomorrow when he saw him again, but he wasn’t in the mood to think too hard about anything.

            Jean stopped his train of thought of his relationship with Eren and snatched the phone from Armin’s hand. “Yeah, Eren, don’t scare us like that, you idiot. Your boy Armin was just about to have a heart attack if he didn’t find you by morning!” Jean said jokingly, jerking a thumb over at Armin although he knew Eren couldn’t see it. Armin smiled behind Jean’s back rather than trying to reach for his phone again. Jean’s casualness came out naturally, and Eren thankfully picked up on it and went along with it.

_“Oh, I didn’t know the shitty Jean Kirschstein cared about little ol’ Eren-fucking-Jaeger from Shinganshina! I’ll be sure to go missing longer so you have something to cry about. Maybe a whole day, see how you react to that.”_

            “Oh shit yourself, Jaeger, like I’d waste my manly tears on you. Men are only allowed to cry once their entire life, why should I waste it on the likes of you!?”

_“Ha ha ha! Who fed you this bullshit? Everyone knows you get three times, and anything before the age of thirteen doesn’t count either.”_

            “Are you saying three because you’ve already cried at least once Jaeger?” Eren laughed on the other end of the line and when Eren didn’t reply fast enough Jean frowned and turned around enough that Armin could see his expression. Armin looked on, worried their joke would turn into a fight.

_“Keep dreaming, Jean. I bet you cry every night when your mom forgets to tuck you into bed.”_

            Jean was quick to fire a retort but stopped himself. There was a silence on Eren’s end that he knew where Jean could have gone with his next response but stopped before the thought even completed itself. There was an awkward laugh from Eren, and one from Jean.

            The night was definitely long and weird.

_Ahh… Though I do enjoy our conversations, it’s late. I’d really love to keep this up but I have a feeling that we’d start arguing again, and frankly, I’m a bit tired for that. Give the phone to Armin, I’m gonna say g’night to him.”_

            Jean was taken aback by the sudden change but complied nonetheless. He didn’t have the energy to keep a conversation going with him anyway.

 _"Oh and Jean-,”_ Eren quickly said before Jean handed Armin his phone back. _“Thank you for helping Armin, I’m sorry I caused you trouble. G’night.”_

 _Don’t mention it,_ Jean almost said. The words died on his lips and he sucked in his lower lip before scratching it on his upper teeth. He heard Eren call out to Jean, unsure if he heard what he said. Jean just extended his arm with the phone in his hand back to Armin so he wouldn’t have to deal with the situation any further, finding a way to back out before it got too far.

            Armin took the phone back, finishing up the call and saying their extended good nights. Jean just stood there, blank and thoughtless. By the time Armin finished up the call he was all smiles though it seemed oddly placed.

            “Ahhhhhh! That Eren, such a clueless idiot,” Armin stated while stretching his back. “I won’t deal with it anymore tonight, I’m exhausted. I’ll head home now, goodnight Jean, thank you again for staying out with me tonight.” The blond smiled at Jean and he felt his lips quiver and he pulled on a smile too.

            “No problem, glad to help.”

            Armin just continued smiling and nodded his head. He was already walking away when he said, “Well, I’ll just walk home from here, I’ll see you at school tomorrow. Stay safe, Jean!”

            Jean was still standing in the same place when Armin turned around to walk down the street. His hand hovering in the air after he had waved goodbye. He sighed and turned on his heel to walk in the direction of his home, not thinking a single thought all the way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Looking back it took me like 9 months to stick with this version of the chapter. One version of it had Levi pick up Jean and Armin after he found out where Eren was but that didn’t seem to fit with where I wanted the story to go so… This is what you get I guess x’D my apologies. The gap between chapters was huge… I’m starting to hit a wall with this series but I reeeeally wanna keep writing it, I have a few things planned out but yeah. Totally welcome to comment ideas and suggestions! Also my Tumblr is still nomnomfever


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